True, her father had insisted that she must come to live with him, and Letitia had repeated the invitation, but Alicia could not bring herself to surrender her brief independence for a home that wasn’t hers. She knew she had hurt her father’s feelings by delaying her departure from the boardinghouse, so she had attempted to make it up to him in other ways. She wasn’t certain how long that would satisfy him.
Her gaze wandered over the crowd, most of whom she had met these last few weeks. They were an odd lot, scarcely the statesmen and aristocratic families that she had known in Philadelphia, but they had their own levels of aristocracy here. The wealthy French and Spanish families that had formed this settlement still dominated society, but the American politicians now governing the territory had become an important part of the local scene.
The American businessmen and professionals who had begun to arrive with the Louisiana Purchase found their expertise and their ready cash equally welcome. The talk this evening was of the act being introduced in Congress to carve out the land west of St. Louis as the Missouri Territory, to be governed separately from the rest of the purchase. Politics seldom changed.
Alicia discovered a towheaded young man striding toward the staircase where she stood. She sighed, wondering if she dared escape to the room that was to be hers for the evening. The eligible men she had met these last weeks were not so very different from those she had known back East, though several were considerably more hotheaded. They spoke of duels and gambling and racing as if they were still in New Orleans, where many of them came from. She had learned to take much of their charming, soft-spoken flattery with a grain of salt.
Catching her father watching, Alicia accepted the young man’s offer to dance and allowed herself to be led out into the company. At least these fast-moving country dances alleviated the necessity of conversation. She enjoyed intelligent conversation, but the young men she’d met so far seldom indulged in that pleasant activity. She supposed they must talk among themselves of things other than the weather and her beauty, but those seemed to be the only topics appropriate between men and women.
True to form, as they left the dance floor and approached the buffet, the young man complimented her on the loveliness of her gown. Defying her father’s wishes on this point, Alicia had chosen the black silk, high-waisted Parisian gown she had worn for the first time in Cincinnati. Her mother had been dead less than a year, and she did not find the color inappropriate. Among all the vivid colors of the holiday season, it produced a more sophisticated than somber effect.
She had listened to Letitia’s advice, however, and not covered the low neckline with anything other than an intricate silver necklace that picked up the silver thread shot through the brocade. She felt conspicuous whenever her escorts’ straying gazes fell lower than her eyes, but she endured their attentions with fortitude. Looking did not have the power to harm her.
Her father rescued her from a witless exchange over the beauty of the imported crystal chandelier. She accepted his hand and smiled in delight as the musicians struck up a waltz. Even in Philadelphia the waltz was shockingly daring, but she loved the music and the movement.
“It is New Year’s Eve, and I am scandalously happy. Shall we see that the rest of our guests are equally scandalized?” Chester Stanford suggested as he led his daughter out onto the dance floor.
“Nothing would please me more,” Alicia agreed, swinging into the rhythm under her father’s expert guidance. “However did you learn to waltz while living out here among the savages?”
“I travel widely and allowing ladies to teach me the intricacies of the dance made an excellent opportunity to get to know them better. One is seldom a stranger in the city for long if one knows how to waltz.”
Alicia had to laugh at the gleam in her father’s eyes. He had always been able to make her laugh. She could not understand how her mother had failed to love his charming, witty company. She supposed he had always been something of a ladies’ man, but she felt certain he would have been a faithful husband had her mother allowed it. Was it possible that she had inherited her mother’s coldness?
Not wishing to linger on such thoughts, Alicia fell in with his nonsense. “And has Letitia taught you so well that you have chosen her over all the others?”
Chester laughed. “Letitia will not even watch if she can avoid it. You are too young to hear her comments upon the sinful thoughts of men’s minds while waltzing.”
Alicia looked mildly alarmed. “If she is so religious as that, how can you—I mean—” She stumbled over the words, not knowing how to phrase them delicately. The sins of men had been one of her mother’s preoccupations, and it had destroyed their marriage. Why would her father seek out another such woman?
Her father smiled at her confusion. “You do not need to say it. Letitia is no more religious than I, nor is she as cold as my comment made it seem. I fear it is just the opposite. She knows well what is in my mind and enjoys it, but I do not expect you to understand that until you marry. Have any of the local fellows caught your eye?”
The change of topic brought a flush to Alicia’s cheeks, and she looked out over the crowd. “They are all very pleasant,” she said stiltedly.
Chester shrugged. “If there are none here, we will take you to Natchez and New Orleans and anywhere else you would like to go. You should have your choice of men. I want you to be happy.”
Alicia remained silent. She knew her father still felt guilty for leaving her; he had said as much. He only meant to compensate for the missing years with these sweeping promises of eligible men and happy marriages. She could not tell him it was too late. Just a hint that she was no longer a virgin would horrify these droves of well-bred gentlemen her father promised to present. She did not even have to worry about getting past that stage to discussions of marriage. She could not marry. But how was she to explain that simple fact to a man as persistent as her father?
If he had only carried that persistence into inquiring why her letters had never arrived, he might have discovered her unhappiness and saved her from disaster. When they had discussed it, it had become obvious that her mother must have intercepted the letters. Alicia had been too young to understand, but surely her father would have known what kind of woman he had married. But he had given up when the only the letters he received were those she had mailed to her aunt or that she had personally mailed. Why hadn’t he found some way to reach her?
Gazing at the crowded ballroom with its glittering array of guests, Alicia could surmise the answer to that question.
Her father was an energetic man who enjoyed people and business and pleasure. He had found all three in his new life. Perhaps there were times when he missed his daughter, but those times were not frequent enough to justify returning to the family he had left behind. Once her father made a decision, he didn’t look back. Little by little she was learning he was as human as the rest of mankind. She still loved him, but not with the idolatry of her younger years.
That knowledge made it easier to recognize the chasm widening between them. Her father would insist on seeing her as an eligible young daughter to be married off to one of the best men money could buy. And she could barely look those same men in the face. It put her in an unconscionable position.
The dance ended and her father left her in the company of a bevy of young people. Alicia felt ancient beyond her years as they flirted and teased and talked of nothing more serious than the next party they would attend. She had never learned to talk like that, and she saw no point in trying now. Making her excuses, she slipped from the ballroom into the wide hall.
She heard men discussing business in the smoke-filled study and hurried past that door to the back of the house. The main parlors and dining room had been opened up to make the ballroom, but the family sitting room overlooking the gardens and the hill beyond would be quiet and private.
She had only just entered the room when she realized she was not alone. Swinging to make a hasty retreat, Alicia hal
ted at the sound of a familiar, husky murmur.
“Don’t go, Alicia.”
Her heart gave a nervous thud and all her senses told her to flee. That would not only be rude but cruel. She searched the darkness, finding Travis’s tall, lean frame silhouetted against the French doors. The gleam of his cheroot arced downward as he smashed it against some hidden tray. Growing accustomed to the dim light, Alicia could discern the immaculate white of his cravat and shirt against the darker hues of his tailored coat.
“Why are you here?” The question did not come out as she liked, revealing an ambiguity she had not meant.
Travis took his time answering, as if debating which answer she wanted to hear. “I had some business with your father,” he replied.
The sound of his voice sent shivers down Alicia’s spine. Travis exuded some virile magnetism that she instinctively feared but could not seem to fight. She remembered being held in those powerful arms that had guided a boat load of people down mighty rivers. She remembered the tenderness in his touch when he had to feed her, clothe her, care for her as a parent would a child. And she remembered his vicious knife slashing a man’s life away. He terrified her. And fascinated her.
Bravely she approached him. “You are a businessman now?” she inquired, wanting to know this, wanting to know everything, and not wanting him to know her interest.
“Of sorts.” The room held little furniture. Travis stepped aside at the French doors so she might look out. “Why are you not in there with the others, dancing the new year in?”
“Why am I here?” she rephrased it for him. “I don’t belong in there.”
Travis leaned against the wall and studied her face in the lamplight. She averted her eyes from his inspection. “I don’t believe that,” he said. “You are the most beautiful woman in that room tonight. The others may as well have come from other planets. Every eye is on you.”
Alicia laughed softly. “I should think if there were creatures from other planets in there, it would be wisest to keep an eye on them. Why aren’t you in there with the rest of them, then?”
“I wasn’t invited.” It was a statement of fact, without inflection.
Alicia glanced curiously at his bronzed, expressionless face. “Then why are you here?”
This time Travis did chuckle. “Full circle. Shall I clarify my first answer? I made it my business to be here. Your father is not averse to making money, and I can help him. But he prefers to keep business and pleasure separate.”
“Not always.” The strains of a second waltz struck up, and Alicia glanced back toward the hall. Her father would be looking for her. She should return.
“Would you care to dance?”
The question seemed absurd and Alicia looked to see if he mocked her, but Travis only waited patiently.
“It’s a waltz,” she replied inanely. He seemed to have robbed her of her wits.
Instead of speaking, Travis circled her waist with one arm and captured her hand with the other. The unfurnished, uncarpeted room made an ideal dance floor. He led her into the rhythms of the music until they circled and swept the perimeter of the room as if they were surrounded by a magnificent ballroom in a glittering palace full of courtly people.
It was unlike anything Alicia had ever experienced. The music and the man carried her away into a different world, one in which she had no care beyond the sound of music and the next step. That she could feel the heat of his hand through the thin silk at her waist, that his head bent close to hers and his breath rippled through her hair, made no difference in this world of just being. She relaxed and floated in his arms without fear.
The spell held for magic moments after the music ended. Travis continued holding her hand, her waist, and looking down into her upturned face. Alicia caught her breath at the burning look in black eyes, but she did not back away.
“Let me teach you not to fear.” The words were quiet, undemanding.
Alicia did not pretend to misunderstand. She continued to stare, frozen and beyond the ability to act at will. “That’s not possible.”
“Let me try.” More command than plea. Travis caressed her cheek. “No one else knows you as I do. You cannot live with the fear for the rest of your life. It will destroy you. You must trust someone, Alicia. Let it be me.”
And she yearned to do so. For those brief magic moments in his arms she had been free, and she wanted to taste that freedom again. The tension was already returning to her back and neck, and the terrified hollow in her center made her edge away. He wanted her as a man wants a woman, but she could not be that woman.
Still, she had already seen the alternatives. Her father wanted her to marry, but she could not. How could she explain to those proper young men that she had been horribly raped, had carried another man’s baby, and was terrified of just their touch? Travis knew, and did not care. She could turn her back on her father and all men and go her own way, but the unbearably lonely life that meant terrified her as much as the other. Travis knew that too, because he had suffered the same emptiness as she.
That realization caused Alicia to study him with sorrow. He was an outcast in both the worlds he belonged in. He knew what it was like to be different, to be unwanted. She did not know his past, but she understood his yearning. Raised as an Indian but rejected as a white man. Taught to be a gentleman but scorned as a red man. His problems were more than hers, but together . . .
Before her fear could stop her, Alicia replied, “I want to be normal again. If I must learn to trust, I will have to start with you.”
Travis’s exhalation of breath was almost audible. “You’ll not regret it.”
A corner of his lips turned up mischievously. “Perhaps, occasionally, you might regret it.”
A bubble of laughter rose in her throat at this honesty, but there was no time for it to escape. Travis clasped her in his strong embrace, and his whisky-scented lips covered hers with the branding heat of possession.
She had sold her soul to the devil.
Chapter 14
By the next day Alicia had come to her senses. She didn’t know what Travis intended, but she knew it was the height of idiocy to even be in the same room with him. Last night had certainly proved that.
Looking in the mirror and touching her lips where he had kissed her, she was amazed that no sign of his brand appeared. Never had she been kissed like that. How could she have been so irresponsible as to let that half-breed keelboatman take such liberties?
How would she tell Travis that she had no desire to see him again? The problem preyed on her mind through the holidays. She had persuaded her father to allow her to stay in Bessie’s rooms awhile longer, while the workmen finished up her father’s new house and the last of the furniture arrived.
But once back in the familiar bustle of the schoolroom, Alicia returned to her routine, and the problem of Travis dissipated. Keeping up with half a dozen active little girls at once kept her well occupied.
Leaving at the end of the day, the sight of Travis in buckskin and fringe filling the school’s feminine parlor with his virile, six-foot frame, talking with the school’s elderly spinster owner brought Alicia to an alarmed halt.
Seeing her in the doorway, Travis rose, dwarfing the tiny woman at the fire, who turned expectantly.
“Alicia! Bless you, child, you’ll never guess! Mr. Travis says he can construct that stage we need without any trouble at all! He said he would be happy to do it. You must thank your father for bringing such a talented and generous man to our community.”
That pretty speech brought laughter to Travis’s damnable eyes and a wry twist to Alicia’s lips. She had little choice but to nod agreement. “Mr. Travis is a man of many talents. A stage would be most beneficial for recitations and even graduation ceremonies.”
“Exactly!” said Miss Lalende. “Mr. Travis, you are to make yourself at home here. Come and go as you need. I realize you are a busy man, and we will do our best to accommodate you.”
“I sh
all be back on the morrow, mademoiselle.” Travis picked up his hat and prepared to leave. “I must see Miss Stanford home now. Thank you for your company.”
By the time they reached the street, Alicia was ready to burst, but whether with anger or laughter, she could not quite tell. She threw him a sidelong look. “That surpassed the drunken Indian act.”
Travis nodded solemnly. “I surprise even myself sometimes.”
She couldn’t resist any longer. Laughter bubbled, floating clear and free in the crystalline winter air. There were times when he was so much like a small boy, she could not be angry with him.
Obviously pleased with himself, Travis grinned and caught her hand, tucking it within the crook of his arm. “That’s much better. For a moment there, I thought you might shoot me. I only meant to make my presence acceptable to your formidable employer. She graciously supplied the extraneous details.”
“I can imagine. She knows how to get things done by currying favor with the well-to-do. How did you know to address her as mademoiselle? No one else does.”
Travis shrugged. “Her first impression of me was less than the best, and she cursed me roundly in French. I answered her.”
Alicia could imagine how that would have startled the old lady. It silenced her. A half-breed boatman who spoke French. Was there anything he could not do?
At her continued silence Travis glanced down at her. “Alicia?”
She raised her eyes questioningly.
“I mean to court you properly, but if my company will cause problems, I am quite capable of using subterfuge.”
They were walking down Main Street, surrounded by respectable shops, in the company of decent people. Why did he make her feel as if they were all alone, contemplating the unspeakable? He made her feel half naked and vulnerable.
“I have no doubt of your ability for subterfuge,” Alicia answered. “But it’s not necessary. I spoke hastily the other night.”
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