“She knows me.”
Pierre halted his discourse, studying his nephew from beneath shaggy black eyebrows. “She could think the same about you, nèfyou, the way you stared at her.”
Brett whirled to face his uncle. “God’s bones, Pierre, listen to what I’m saying. She recognized me.”
Silenced, Pierre stared hard into his nephew’s black eyes. Even with the age difference, the two men could have passed for brothers. Swarthy of complexion and broad of shoulder with lean torsos reflecting their French heritage, both men had hair black as Hades, at least Pierre’s had been until recently when silver streaks began to appear. Brett teased him about being long-in-the-tooth.
“Never you min’, tonc,” he would tell his uncle in their common Acadian dialect, “you might look like a long-in-the-tooth panther, oui, but you know what they say about ol’ panthers. They lose their get-up but never their come-along.”
Pierre’s eyes widened now at his nephew’s claim that the woman had recognized him. “Me, I have never seen that beauty before.”
“When did she come aboard?”
“At St. Louis,” a third man responded.
The two men started at the voice, then settled down when Gabriel, the third member of their trio, sidled up beside them. A short, wiry man nearing mid-thirty, Gabriel carried his fiddle and bow clasped one in each fist. “Ah, non, that is one woman you couldn’t miss in a bayou fog.”
“Is she alone?” Brett demanded.
Gabriel turned his back to his friends at the rail, greeting this person and that, as the passengers began to leave the dining room. He fiddled a few strains of “Arkansas Traveler” while supplying details surreptitiously over his shoulder concerning Delta’s arrival on the Mississippi Princess accompanied by the Myricks. “She and the ol’ lady were all that remained as travelers,” he finished.
“She recognized you, certainement?” Pierre quizzed.
Brett inhaled a lungful of river-scented air, then exhaled slowly. “No,” he replied at last. “No, I’m not certain of it. But she had that look in her eyes—like when you see someone you know but their name slips your mind.”
Gabriel raised his bow and played a few bars of “Go, Forget Me, Why Should Sorrow o’er That Brow a Shadow Fling.”
“Maybe you take the wrong message, mon ami,” he told his friend. “Maybe she wasn’t thinkin’, ‘I know this man,’ but ‘I want to know him.’”
“Maybe it was those blue eyes that raised your hackles,” Pierre suggested.
“Oui,” Brett agreed. “Blue-eyed women have a way of doing that.”
Pierre frowned. “I’ll ask around.”
“No, that would only draw attention.” Brett glanced from one man to the other. “Keep your eyes and ears open. Both of you. We’ll rendezvous at the usual place around midnight.”
Gabriel strolled off down the deck, entertaining the passengers with another lively tune as Captain Kaney had hired him to do, and Pierre turned toward the stairwell. “Want to fortify yourself with a whiskey before your game with the little old ladies?”
Brett declined. “Go ahead. I need some air.”
Pierre slapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, nèfyou. It is clever, your disguise. An’ ten years is a long time. No one is expecting you to return by now. Much less would they look for you on a showboat, playing cards with ol’ ladies in the afternoon and high-stakes poker with their husbands at night.”
After Pierre left, Brett leaned folded arms against the rail and tried to clear his mind of the unwanted image of those clear, blue eyes. Those melancholy blue eyes.
Pierre was right about his disguise as a gambler; it was a good one. But the self-restraint required to carry it off was becoming a chore. He was tired of little old ladies and rich old men. He was tired of expecting danger to leap at him from around every corner of this damned boat.
Oui, it had been a clever idea, but was it a sane one? After ten years in exile was he so homesick he would risk any danger, even the loss of his life, to return to the bayous of Louisiana?
Was it homesickness that drew him back? Or was it a pair of blue eyes that danced in his dreams to the beat of a Voodoo drum?
The decision to return home had been the easy part. Once made, he had been faced with the logistics of such a journey. Traveling horseback through the country would be certain to arouse suspicions, Pierre had argued. They all three agreed that the rails were out of the question with the Pinkertons in operation.
Then he heard about Kaney’s new showboat and his trip to Louisiana to participate in the procession to honor the opening of South Pass. It had seemed a perfect solution. The older, wealthier passengers on such a voyage would be unlikely to suspect a fellow traveler of being a fugitive, and at every stop he would have the opportunity to check his waystations. With over a third of the trip elapsed, he had finally become hopeful of its success.
At least he had been hopeful until today at noon when a pair of melancholy blue eyes threatened to topple his carefully laid plans.
He shuddered recalling them. Recalling, too, the dream that had haunted him for six long months. A dream of blue eyes.
That dream had called him home. Until then he hadn’t allowed himself to think about returning to the bayou—except perhaps of a cold winter’s night. The winters in Canada had been rough. He knew he would never get used to the cold. But all in all, trapping was trapping, whether in the frozen north country or in the steamy swamps of his homeland.
He probed it now, that dream of blue eyes. But it wasn’t any clearer in the harsh light of day than in the shadows of the night. Blue eyes and a misty woman of undetermined age and description.
The only conclusion he had been able to draw was that the blue eyes belonged to his mother. Again the blue eyes of the woman in the dining room sparkled before him. Oui, Maman’s eyes had once sparkled with that same trace of melancholy. But not the day he left her alone in the bayou. They had been dark with fear and sadness that day. Were they still?
Was she still alive, his maman? That question had preyed on his mind. That question was pulling him home. The blue eyes of the woman in the dining room danced in his vision. Her eyes and her face. Pierre had been right about the woman’s beauty. Her beauty had held him spellbound for a time, her creamy complexion, her full lips that practically issued an engraved invitation to a man to kiss them. But it was her eyes that had captured his attention.
He gripped the rail with both fists. God’s bones! He must watch his step, else his attention would not be all that was captured.
Leaving the dining hall Delta hurried to her cabin to fetch a notepad and freshen up for her interview with the cast of the Princess Players. The stranger’s arrogance, followed by his angry departure from the dining room, pursued her like an angry cur nipping at her heels as she pressed along the crowded passageway.
Except he was no stranger, she thought for the dozenth time. Not to her. She knew him from somewhere. But where? By the time she reached her stateroom, foreboding, as heavy as a river fog on a spring morn, had settled over her.
Mama Rachael had stayed behind in the dining room, accepting Lottie’s and Dora’s invitation to tour the boat.
“Meet us in the cabin lounge at three,” Dora Menefee had instructed, after Delta excused herself from the dining table. “We have tea and play poker there every afternoon.”
“I’ll try, Mrs. Menefee,” Delta had replied, watching Mama Rachael nearly burst her stays with excitement, “but my interview may not be finished in time.” She felt a sudden need to caution Mama Rachael to watch her money and not get carried away with her betting, but she didn’t know how to do so graciously in front of strangers, so she resisted.
Arriving at her stateroom, she let herself in, closed the door behind her, and stood a moment, taking in the room afresh. With the trunks removed, there was definitely more space, and after Mama Rachael left the boat at Memphis, Delta would have all the space to herself. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so
bad.
But the beds were awfully close, she thought suddenly, and Memphis was several nights away. What if she cried out in her sleep? She would wake Mama Rachael and be required to explain her dreams and—
Delta sighed. She and Ginny had gone over this same thing several times. Mama Rachael was a heavy sleeper, Ginny had insisted. Wasn’t it like raising the dead to awaken the woman when on occasion her snoring became intolerable?
That was true, Delta had always countered, but—
“Just wait and see,” Ginny had predicted. “Mama Rachael’s snoring will probably keep you awake every night. By the time you arrive in Memphis, you’ll likely be so eager for a good night’s sleep, you’ll welcome a nightmare or two.”
On a cold day in hell, Delta thought now, recalling her reply to Ginny as she opened the door to her chiffonier intending to repin her windblown hair. She gasped. For instead of her own reflection in the looking glass, the countenance of the stranger glared ominously back at her.
Slamming the door on the mocking image, she tried to laugh at such foolishness, but the sound quivered from her throat. How had the image come so quickly to mind—so clearly—when she had been thinking of something else?
Her heart pounded against her chest. The stateroom became stifling. Inhaling deep gulps of air, she fought to still her racing mind. But the image had appeared so suddenly she began to wonder whether she had any control over her own brain. That, she told herself, was foolishness.
Fiercely she threw open the chiffonier again, this time in defiance of her lack of will power. Perhaps she couldn’t control her dreams, but she could certainly control her brain while awake. She glared at her own reflection. No arrogant stranger was going to ruin her daytime hours.
The experience added to her anxieties, however, and she soon became desperate to escape the confining stateroom. With studied deliberation she concentrated on preparations for her upcoming interview.
Recalling Hollis’s instructions that an interviewer should never present herself as a threat to her subjects, she removed her hat and carefully stuck the pearl-headed pin in her pincushion, then rearranged her hair in a more casual style, catching her long curls with a claret bow at her nape.
Surveying all she could see of herself in the small looking glass, she decided to remove her suit jacket as well. A simple skirt and waist, she reasoned, would be less formal for an afternoon aboard ship than a suit, although her waist was far from simple. Mama Rachael had outdone herself on Delta’s wardrobe. The entire bodice of her white waist was constructed of tiny diagonal tucks, interspersed with bands of the same cotton lace that trimmed the high collar and broad cuffs.
She tugged on her corset, pulled down the tail of her waist, and smoothed her skirt over her hips. Without warning her attention returned to that despicable stranger. He had been elegantly attired.
She scowled at her reflection, tying her claret sash with such a jerk her breath caught. Even dressed like a gentleman, she countered, the man’s rough exterior had been evident.
She thought of her brothers, rough and tough to the man of them. Yet they were compassionate and gentle inside. She had detected no such redeeming qualities in the stranger in the dining room. He had stared at her with a hard, almost cruel intensity.
Why she hadn’t felt instantly threatened by such a man, she couldn’t fathom. Whatever the reason for his physical similarity to someone she knew, this was assuredly a man a lady should regard from afar. His quick flash of anger proved his volatile nature.
But her persistent brain refused to listen to reason. Leaving her parasol behind, she took up her tapestry portfolio with notebook and pencils inside and retraced her steps to the observation deck. On the way, her mind replayed the drama at lunch, going over every feature of the stranger’s face. Perhaps if she could place him in her memory, she could then erase him from her mind. Since she had seen very little of the world—Silver Creek, Texas, and St. Louis and points in between—the task shouldn’t be difficult. She knew he wasn’t from Silver Creek. So he must be someone she had met at the Sun office. Perhaps an acquaintance of Hollis’s.
She sighed. Perhaps he merely resembled someone she had known before.
The angry manner in which he had stomped out of the dining room still confounded her. It was as if he had been angry with her, but what had she—?
Her feet came to a halt. Could he have taken offense at the bold manner in which she had perused him? Could it be? She blushed to think so, but, however embarrassing, the idea began to ease her foreboding—a fact that only proved Ginny’s theory that once a reason was found for something, the solution would follow.
She would steer clear of this stranger. That should be simple enough. And it would solve the problem, especially if he had been put off by her unseemly, but definitely unintentional scrutiny.
Nevertheless, she mused, he had been staring at her first—
“There you are, Miss Jarrett.” Captain Kaney stopped her on the observation deck outside the dining room. “On your way to rehearsal?”
Delta came to an abrupt halt in front of the captain, but her attention focused on the man at his side, while her stomach turned a somersault. “Yes, sir,” she mumbled, managing to smile, albeit feebly, at the stranger from lunch before she tore her eyes away.
Her brief glance, however, had been enough to determine that up close his gaze was even more intense. Not as cold and hard as she had thought, but piercing, searching. And his eyes were black.
Eager to move away, she turned to go. “Excuse me, I’m late.”
The captain called her back. “Let me introduce you two, since you’ll both be guests at my table this evening.”
Delta felt her knees go weak. Given no choice, she complied with the captain’s suggestion, again making a tenuous attempt to smile. This time, however, she avoided the stranger’s eyes, focusing somewhere near his chest. Inanely she calculated its size, which must surely match her brothers’ chests, in breadth.
“Miss Delta Jarrett from St. Louis,” the captain enunciated each word in a tone befitting the most proper drawing room, “may I introduce M’sieur Brett Reall of Canada.”
Canada? She hesitated, belatedly extending her hand. Only then did she realize she had failed to replace her gloves after combing her hair. How stupid, she admonished, feeling weakness grow like warm yeast inside her stomach. She never forgot things like gloves and—
His hand was large and callused and very warm. Hers felt hopelessly damp and small—and it trembled.
She chanced a glance at him.
“Mademoiselle.” His voice was rich, his French accent melodious, yet his greeting was uttered without a trace of warmth.
“Mr. Reall,” she quipped, quickly withdrawing her hand. “Please, excuse me.” She turned to the captain. “Rehearsal is sure to have begun without me.”
“The room should be ready by now,” Captain Kaney acknowledged, his final words fading in her ears as she fled through the double doors that led to the grand dining room.
Except it was no longer a dining room. The fixtures were the same—swinging chandeliers, ornate arches and moldings—but the dining tables had been undressed and separated into numerous small tables with four gilded bamboo chairs to each. Already a few passengers sat at the rear of the room sipping drinks and gossiping.
At the far end of the hall the captain’s table had also been removed from sight. The dais now obviously served as a stage. Sounds of allocutions and instruments warming up drifted her way.
But she had trouble concentrating on them.
The stranger had a name now. Brett Reall. Who was he, this Brett Reall? Her hand still throbbed from his touch. His deep voice reverberated in her brain like soft music.
But his eyes stared, fixed and cold. Somehow he didn’t seem alive, made of flesh and blood. But for the warmth of his hand she would have thought him a mannequin like the ones found in Mrs. Doppleheimer’s Dress Shoppe.
Her brain still reeled from t
he encounter, when an attractive redheaded woman not ten years older than Delta herself jumped from the low stage and strode down the aisle, hand extended in greeting.
“Hi, I’m Zanna. Actually, my name is Suzanna, but everyone calls me Zanna. You must be Delta, the journalist.”
“Yes.” Delta took Zanna’s offered hand. She perused the artistic director’s personal style, which could be described as creative, at best. Straight red hair swept loosely back from her round face formed a bun at her nape, from which numerous wisps escaped here and there. Her white waist and purple faille skirt were commonplace and could have been found on a woman from almost any walk of life, but the yellow fringed stole tied about Zanna’s hips gave her costume a flair all its own, and the double strand of red glass beads added to her gypsy image.
One end of the stole came perilously close to dragging the floor, and one corner of her collar was turned under. In all, she looked harried, as though she were pressed for time and had not had a chance to check the looking glass.
“I hope I’m not interrupting rehearsal,” Delta said.
At that, Zanna lifted her palms toward the ornate ceiling then dropped them to her sides in an expression of resignation. “What rehearsal?” She started walking toward the stage and Delta followed. “Look at that. Does that resemble anything halfway organized?”
Delta studied the assortment of actors and musicians assembled on and around the stage, which stood open with heavy draperies pushed to the far walls on each side. It fairly bustled with activity. As Zanna had suggested, however, each of the half dozen actors appeared to be engaged in a different performance.
And the musicians, as well, she noticed. From the orchestra’s position to the right of the stage, a trumpet blasted intermittent notes, while a trombone ran the scales, and a drummer appeared to be lost in his own world.
On stage a beautiful young woman with a round face and cherublike body sang to the near-empty salon. Blond hair fell in unrestrained ringlets around her innocent face. A pale blue ribbon was tied around her head, the bow just off center, matching her lovely lawn gown. Tears streamed down the young woman’s face, but she paid them no heed. Her voice, as it drifted in and out among the other havoc coming from the stage, was lyrical.
Sunrise Surrender--Jarrett Family Sagas--Book Three Page 3
