Before they could travel anywhere, Alicia insisted Rebecca would have to bathe. For that she needed Travis’s aid. As soon as she heard his footsteps on the deck, Alicia swept from the cabin to confront him.
To her surprise Travis agreed readily and sent one of the crew scouring the town for a barrel while others gathered wood for a fire to heat water. This late in October, the river would be too chilly for bathing.
He extracted his due, however, detaining Alicia while the fire was built.
“What has she told you?”
Even in the gathering twilight Alicia could feel the intensity of his gaze, but she could not turn her back on him and walk away. “Nothing that I can believe with any surety. She claims her mother is a beautiful actress who died and went to heaven, and her father is waiting for her in St. Louis, that somehow they were separated. That is the part that makes sense to a small degree.”
“She chose the story most like yours to make it believable. An inveterate liar always knows when they are believed. Whatever her past truly is, Rebecca Whitehead had just rewritten it to suit you.”
Alicia grimaced but couldn’t argue the possibility.
He added his own discoveries to Alicia’s. “According to one of the men I talked to, she came here with a man who claimed to be her father. They were looking for transportation up the river and ran up a sizable bill at the tavern while waiting. Apparently her father either made a deal with Hans or just decided to slip off without paying his bills. One morning he was gone and she was still there. The girl has kept pretty much to herself since then. With any luck, she won’t present too much difficulty.”
Alicia shuddered in the horror. “I don’t think she enjoyed what she was doing. It should not be difficult to keep her from your men.”
Travis looked at her with curiosity. Alicia’s innocence was almost frightening, but charming too. He had forgotten how protected an unmarried lady could be, and he saw no need to enlighten her now. He just added a few words of caution. “I won’t worry about my men, but I’ve hired new ones to help pole us up the river. They’ll know her story. It won’t be easy to silence them.”
Obviously not understanding, she shrugged the warning aside. “There is little I can do about that. We cannot leave her here. How long will it be before we reach St. Louis?”
The breeze ruffled a curl escaping from Alicia’s bonnet, and Travis had the urge to grab the hideous apparel and fling it in the river so he might see the chestnut tresses beneath. Instead he steadied his hand by leaning it against the cabin.
“The Mississippi is low and slow this time of year, but it will not be an easy ride. It will be November, I suspect, if all goes well.”
Alicia couldn’t hide her despair. “Thank you for taking on Rebecca,” she murmured before turning to head back to the cabin.
Travis caught her elbow, preventing her escape. “Don’t shut me out, Alicia.” He kept the timbre of his voice low and reassuring.
She gave him a cool stare. “The door was never open. Please release me.”
She hurried away to the tune of Travis’s curse. She didn’t know what made her say things like that. They had weeks of each other’s company to endure. She should not deliberately antagonize him, not when he tried to be reasonable.
But as Alicia stood guard over Rebecca’s washing later that evening, she realized her reactions were instinctive, designed to keep Travis at a distance. It was better that way, she decided. He was much too bold, and she had too little experience to hold him off. She had seen the gentlemanly guise unmasked and knew him for a savage he was.
Rebecca had willingly submitted to bathing and, because her clothes were no cleaner than herself, she spent that first night wrapped in a blanket while her newly washed wardrobe dried. She made no complaints of sleeping on the pallet constructed on the floor of Alicia’s room, and even offered to brush Alicia’s hair before she went to bed.
Even when the crew poled the keelboat into the Mississippi and out of sight of the tavern and its occupants, Rebecca stayed quietly at her employer’s side. Alicia could not exactly describe the girl’s behavior as meek, for her eyes were everywhere, watching everything—which included a large number of half-dressed men—but she behaved respectably. It might be possible to believe she wished to change her ways.
However, it was not possible to carry on an intelligent conversation with her. Her uneducated speech became lessons in English. The lessons at least gave them some common ground to converse on. Alicia despaired of finding any other.
Becky boldly watched Travis’s broad-shouldered, slim- hipped figure walk away after he had stopped to inquire after Alicia’s comfort. The wind had grown cooler, but Alicia had been unable to bear the confines of the cabin.
Becky turned her speculative gaze to Alicia. “If you like him, why ain’t you let him know? He’s more than willin’.”
Alicia was glad for the cold wind against her hot face. Becky’s one-track mind always caught her by surprise. “I hired Travis to take me to St. Louis. I’m not certain what you mean by willing, but it does not sound like a proper subject for discussion.”
Becky made an exasperated noise. “Every time I speaks of what everybody’s thinkin’, you tell me ’taint fittin’. What do proper folk talk about iffen you can’t say what’s on your mind?”
Alicia couldn’t help but smile at this interpretation of propriety. Certainly other people must have more on their minds than Becky, but she was beginning to question if her maid were not closer to the truth than she wished to admit. “What’s on my mind is that it is very chilly, and I would like a hot bowl of soup and a good book. I’m going in.”
Becky shrugged and cast another look backward. “It ain’t cause he’s got injun blood, is it? He’s too fine-talking to be a real injun. He talks better than any man I ever knowed. Looks better too,” she added as an afterthought.
“How many men have you known?” Alicia asked wryly, gathering her skirts and preparing to depart.
“Lots of ’em,” Becky responded grimly. “But I reckon I know a good one when I see him. He don’t even look twicet at me when every other man on this boat done tried their mightiest to get me alone. Any woman alive could see he’s got his eye on you. Don’t you like his looks?”
Growing annoyed, Alicia ignored this inquiry and stalked back to the protection of the cabin. Her cheeks flamed with the implications of the girl’s words. After being so cruelly used by men, why did she continue to look at them with such avid interest?
Instead of following Alicia into the interior, Becky idled her way to the rear, where Travis had taken up the position of rudder. At this sluggish pace, brawn was needed more than brain. His gaze found Becky immediately, and he frowned.
Her childish stature and open stare were disconcerting. Travis leaned on his pole to stare back. She grinned at this ploy and stepped closer.
“Are you an injun?” she demanded.
“Are you?” Travis asked politely. He didn’t know what the little demon was up to, but he was willing to find out. He hadn’t been able to get close to Alicia since they’d left the Ohio, and the girl was a major reason.
Becky looked mildly confused by this turnabout, but she tried again. “I might be, but that don’t seem to bother Miz Stanford none. Reckon she likes injuns just as well as other people.”
Travis choked on this ingenuousness, but kept a straight face. “I reckon Miss Stanford just likes some people more than others. Don’t you?”
She shook her head. “No, I reckon she likes me well enough, she must like ever’body. I ain’t ever heard her say nothin’ agin nobody. She’s just”—she scrambled for the proper word for the educated lady—”backward.”
This time Travis could not control his shout of laughter, but the pint-sized midget didn’t seem to mind. She waited until he recovered himself before interrogating him again.
“But you ain’t backward. Iffen I’m in the way, why don’t you say so? I owe you one. I’ll sleep somewhe
res else if you want to be alone with the lady.”
A broad grin crept across Travis’s face. “Midget, if the lady heard you say that, she’d have your scalp. If you want to keep your job, you will have to be a little more discreet. You stick with Miss Stanford and look out for her. She’s not much used to these parts.” Hands on hips, Travis glared down at her. “But when you see me moving in, you clear out. Got it?”
Becky grinned. “Yes, sir, Cap’n, sir. I got it.”
Happily she wandered back to the cabin.
Backward! Travis wondered what Alicia would think of that description. He wondered what Alicia would think about a number of things, but he was not likely to find out unless he pressed his suit quickly. St. Louis wasn’t that far away.
He found his opportunity two nights out of St. Louis. The day had been a brilliant autumn spectacular of reds and golds, the lingering warmth of the sun scenting the leaves and stirring the blood. The brown current filled with the floating remains of summer, and excitement rode high at the expectation of reaching their goal shortly. Even Alicia had come out of her shell long enough to bask in the sun and laugh at the crew’s high spirits. Now was the time.
Travis watched as she slipped away from the campfire in the direction of the boat. Becky usually followed, but she had sense enough to wait and see what he would do. Without a glance in the maid’s direction, Travis strode after his prey.
The brisk air and clear skies stirred primitive longings that could easily be assuaged. Travis could imagine lying on a blanket beneath the stars with a willing woman in his arms as the peak of happiness right now. He had not been with another woman since first laying eyes on this one, and his needs were strong. He knew better than to expect much, but just a small melting of Alicia’s cold reserve would suffice. To just lie with her by his side would free his mind for plans for the future. The rest would come with time, he felt confident.
Alicia too felt the spell of the night. She rummaged in her trunk until she found the deep emerald redingote to keep out the autumn chill. Then she perched on the edge of the cabin roof to drink in the river’s silence and salve her injured soul with the peace of the stars and the water’s gentle rocking. She had learned to love these moments, and almost regretted the journey’s end. St. Louis could very easily be the end of her hopes. She was not prepared for still another disappointment.
She had thought about her arrival for so long, she feared any flaw in her plan would shatter her fragile courage. She wanted to teach. She knew she had the education for it, and even her doctor beau had told her she would be good at it. He had expressed his regret that she was wasted on the role of perennial debutante. Now that she had shed that role and could be anything she wanted to be, she could make her life anything she wanted of it.
Unless she found her father immediately. That question loomed large in Alicia’s mind. Surely St. Louis had schools and needed teachers; she had heard the frontier towns were desperate for education. But her father—would he have forgotten her after all these years? Was he alive? Would he still be living in St. Louis? And if he were, could he accept a daughter who had no interest in marrying, but simply wanted to teach?
Her thoughts had carried her so far away, Alicia didn’t hear the noiseless tread of Travis’s moccasins upon the deck, and had no awareness of his presence until he swung up to sit beside her. Startled, Alicia nearly fell from her precarious seat, but Travis caught her and held her until she recovered her balance. His hand remained disconcertingly close behind her.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you.” It was not an apology, simply a statement of fact.
“I know you didn’t mean to,” Alicia acknowledged, reluctant to have her peace disturbed, but somehow not sorry he had intruded upon her troublesome thoughts. There was so much space out here, and she knew no one in it. She had known loneliness before, but not a loneliness so thorough and all encompassing as this.
Travis smiled wryly. “Do you know where you will go when we reach St. Louis?”
“I have the address of my father’s last letter. If he stayed there, surely it must be suitable. And if there is no room there, I will ask for recommendations. It cannot be so very difficult.”
“He has written you?”
“Five years ago.” Her voice was so soft, the night nearly carried them away. “He wrote my aunt and gave her the address and told her if I should ever want him, I could reach him there. I wrote and I wrote, and I never had an answer.”
Travis took her hand, and she did not resist. “Perhaps he never received the letters. It takes six weeks or more for a letter to travel out here. Maybe he had moved and the people at the address simply threw the letters away. Things like that happen.”
“He could have written to tell me,” Alicia whispered. For years her father’s desertion had torn at her heart. She had thought he loved her. He had taken her with him everywhere, treated her as an adult, showed her off to his friends and then one day, he was gone. He had tried to explain, but she had not understood. She had not known he meant to go away forever. The mind of a twelve-year-old does not comprehend forever. Those first few years he had written lovely letters, and she had replied eagerly, but gradually the number of letters grew fewer until there were none at all. Just that last one to her aunt. He was gone now, no longer part of her life. But Alicia could not make her heart believe it.
“Don’t blame him too harshly, Alicia. Life out here changes a man. You will change, too, if you stay here long enough.”
Tears ran down her cheeks, and she turned to study her companion’s angular profile, the high cheekbones and slightly hooked nose. She had the strongest urge to stroke his face, but never would she have the nerve to do such a thing. She wanted desperately to be held, but not the way this man would hold her. Just the sensation of his hardened fingers wrapped around hers upset her equilibrium. The power in his hand was terrifying.
“Did you know your father at all?” Her question came out unbidden.
Travis shrugged. “I lived with him for a good many years. That does not mean I knew him.”
“But you love him?” Alicia did not understand the pattern of her questioning, but she had a need to know.
Travis considered this a minute. “Yes, I suppose I do. I have to respect him. Marrying my mother defied every social and moral tenet he must have known.”
“But it didn’t work out.” Sadly Alicia heard what went unspoken.
“How could it? He had responsibilities elsewhere and her life was here. Perhaps—” Travis shook his head, preferring to change the subject. “It does not matter now. Our lives are what we make them.”
So far she had not made much of her life. It had all been done by others. “I wish I could believe that,” she murmured, mostly to herself.
Travis tightened his hand around hers. “You can, Alicia. Good or bad, you made the decision to come out here. Now open your eyes and see it realistically. It’s not Philadelphia. It’s something completely new and different. There is a place for everybody out here, if you just take advantage of what God has given you.”
Alicia laughed dryly. “God gave me a wealthy father who deserted me and brains that don’t seem to be worth very much in this world. I’m not lacking in blessings. I guess I just haven’t learned to use them yet.”
“He also made you one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen,” Travis reminded her. “Or haven’t you noticed?”
She had never learned to deal well with flattery and had certainly never expected to hear it from this man. She stared at him with a mixture of embarrassment and confusion.
“You have been too long in the wilderness, sir. I am tall and thin and too plain, as I have been told often enough. I certainly never intended to trade on my looks. Do you tell me my education will be unwanted out here, also?”
In exasperation Travis ripped the bonnet from her head and threw it where the wind could catch it. “Let the damned thing blow out to sea or hell or wherever. I never wanted to see the
damned thing again.” His long fingers ran deep into her upswept hair, and his other hand caught her shoulder to keep her from jerking free.
“You have hair like warm mahogany and eyes the color of flashing sapphires, and if you let me dwell on the topic of the rest of you, you would have good cause to slap my face,” Travis informed her with intensity. “Men will always want you, and you had better become accustomed to that fact. Men out here aren’t shy and aren’t in the habit of sending posies and candy. It will be up to you to make the rules and abide by them. I know you are not ready yet, but my offer still stands, Alicia.”
Before Alicia guessed his intention, he circled her waist, and his mouth came down hard and possessively across hers. The thrill generated by his words now deteriorated into pure physical panic. She fought him, fought the strength of those warm arms holding her, the liquid hunger of his kiss, the yearning urge that had allowed him to go this far. She beat his chest, trying to drive away the screaming demons in her soul.
She scratched and kicked and bit until he finally released her. Then she dropped to the deck and hands on hips, attacked him scornfully. “Don’t ever, ever do that again, Travis Lonetree. I will never marry, but I am certainly not likely to consider changing my mind for a violent savage.”
She stormed off and Travis could hear the trunk being shoved in front of the cabin door once more. The hole in the roof had never been mended beyond the tarp, but she knew he wouldn’t use that route again. Not after what she had said.
Cursing, Travis stalked off to find a spot for a cold bath. Ladies weren’t worth the trouble. The first warm and willing woman he found would do.
Chapter 11
Travis hadn’t changed his opinion by the time they docked in St. Louis, and neither had Alicia. They had spent two days coldly ignoring each other. The winds of winter couldn’t have chilled the craft any more thoroughly.
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