“I have a wonderful idea, Nat,” she said suddenly. “After you post the playbills, why don’t you show Elyse Cape Rock? There must be a cafe in town that would fix a picnic lunch for the two of you.”
“And risk my bread getting soggy from her tears? This afternoon is for pleasure, Delta. I want to spend it with you.”
“My company wouldn’t be much pleasure today,” she retorted. “I didn’t sleep well last night, and as soon as I gather information for my article, I intend to return to the boat.”
Nat frowned down at her, his eyes showing his confusion. “What don’t you like about me?”
“Nothing, Nat. You’re absolutely charming. But you’re wasting it on the wrong person.”
“You mean Elyse?”
She nodded. He had turned loose her elbow, but now when they stepped from the gangplank onto the docks, he took it again.
With a tug, he drew her to a halt. “Why are you determined to pair me up with Elyse?”
Beside them the fiddler played in competition with the band. Glancing at him, a sudden wave of recognition passed over Delta. He didn’t meet her eye, and she looked quickly away, but the premonition lingered.
“Why, Delta?” Nat was saying. “Can’t you see it’s you I’m interested in getting to know better?”
“Thanks for the compliment, Nat, but right now all I have on my mind is conducting the investigations my brother-in-law sent me to do.” And uncovering the truth about the unsavory character of M’sieur Brett Reall, she added to herself.
“Later?” Nat queried above renewed vigor from the fiddler who threaded himself in and out toward the head of the gathering, dancing a jig and entertaining the crowd with his lively music.
Shaking her head, she watched the fiddler disappear into the crush of people. “Give up, Nat. Take Elyse to Cape Rock. I’ll make you a ti’ wager that she won’t cry one tear all afternoon if the two of you are alone.”
Zanna nudged them along. “Get going, Nat. These folks won’t wait around all day.”
Delta fell in step beside Zanna. Lovely brick buildings were set snugly along the river—a school for boys, the captain’s notations read. She glanced up the winding clay street. On a knoll above town stood a stately building that closely resembled a brick castle with towers and spires—another school, according to the captain’s notes. And in the center of town a brick building surrounded by what must certainly be acres of blooming roses. She could almost smell their fragrance from the docks.
Suddenly a few feet from the boat, a chill coursed unbidden along her back. Her steps faltered. Without warning the image of Calico Jack came to mind—his rugged face, his carved lips. The image was so clear she felt as though she were experiencing his presence. As quickly as it had come, the chill passed and warmth suffused her with the softness of early summer. Inexplicably she turned to stare back at the Mississippi Princess. Ginny had been right, she thought. It did look like a wedding cake.
Then she saw him. Brett Reall leaned against the rail on the promenade deck with the nonchalance of a man who hadn’t a care in the world. He stared after her. She could feel the intensity in his black eyes, or perhaps she only recalled it, she corrected hastily. His solemn, unreadable expression belied the brutal way he had forced himself on her the evening before.
Turning quickly away she followed the cast in morose silence, Zanna’s instructions to smile lost in the maze her brain had become. At the entrance to the Jesuit school, she bade Zanna good-bye.
“I’ll meet you at the city hall,” Zanna told her, indicating a brick structure in the center of town. “It’s the building surrounded by roses. That’s where you’ll find the mayor.”
With difficulty Delta concentrated on her interview with the master of the Jesuit school, and it went well enough. Afterwards she hurried across the street to see the mayor, scarcely daring to look left or right, so afraid was she of seeing Brett again.
Since the city hall stood in the center of town, the entire city could be viewed from the grounds. Several roads fanned from the edge of the beautiful rose gardens like spokes from the hub of a wheel.
Mayor Girardot was a friendly octogenarian, eager to discuss his efforts to bring the rails to town. He confided that he could be a descendant of the city’s founder. Then again, he confessed, his family could merely have taken the man’s name.
“That isn’t uncommon out here even today,” the wiry little fellow assured Delta. “Folks change their names at the drop of a hat.” He chuckled. “Or the drop of a gun barrel.”
The mayor had insisted they enjoy the roses, reminding her not to forget to mention them in her article, so they strolled up and down the pathways, while she conducted the interview. The many-hued roses lent an elegance to the old brick buildings. Their fragrance drifted like sweet perfume on the soft air.
“Fur trade made us great,” the mayor told her. “That’s slacked off considerably. Everything’s slacked off since the war, but we’re working to bring prosperity back to town. We’ll run it in on the rails, like the war run it out.”
Delta wrote furiously, striving to record the man’s conversation word for word. His provincial jargon would lend authenticity to the article and make writing it easier.
Which in turn would give her more time to pursue leads on the despicable Brett Reall. At the thought, she glanced up from her pad to see two horsemen approach from the wharf area. Nearing the city hall, one of them drew rein, tipped his hat back with a finger, and stared at her. Her heart skipped two beats. Brett Reall, accompanied by the companion she had seen with him on other occasions.
She stared as though transfixed. The alacrity with which her brain seemed to call forth this despicable man stunned her. His gaze was intense. It penetrated to some unknown place deep within her, violating, the way his lips, his tongue had violated her the evening before. Yet, somehow, despicable though he was, she did not feel threatened. And that fact was the most ominous of all.
When at last he broke their gaze it was as before, with a grim, almost angry toss of his head. Watching him ride away from the city hall, she realized to her horror that she had been smiling at him.
Quickly, she composed herself and concluded the interview, promising to send the mayor a copy of the Sun when the article was published.
Snatches of Nat’s earlier conversation came to mind. She stared up at the empty road where Brett had disappeared. “Where does that road lead?” she questioned the mayor.
“Cape Rock,” he responded. “It’s a couple of miles out of town, but I wouldn’t advise you to travel there. It’s no place for a lady.”
“Why’s that, Mr. Girardot?”
“Nothing there but a bunch of abandoned buildings and a gaggle of riffraff. We leave ’em alone; they leave us alone. Been that way since the war.”
Brett Reall sat easy in the saddle as he and Pierre left the wharf. Gabriel had gone ashore earlier, surveyed the town, and returned to the Mississippi Princess with two horses.
Brett had planned with care his excursions into the towns at their various stops. First, Gabriel searched the area for anyone who smacked of law enforcement. If the way was clear, he rented riding stock from the local livery, relieving Brett of any contact with townspeople. Later, if questions arose, no one would have cause to remember him.
The sun showered its early morning warmth over the clay street that led uphill from the docks to a brick building in the center of town, whence other streets angled off in several directions. The building was surrounded by a multitude of roses, and the sun glistened off dew on their petals like the reflection of a rainbow. Then suddenly, there in the middle of the glorious profusion, he saw her.
She stood among the roses, the hem of her green skirt swaying gently in the breeze. Encompassed by the many-colored roses, she was the fairest of them all. Warmth traversed his body, not all of it the physical yearning to savor this woman’s sweetness.
That was there, too, of course. Lust. Hadn’t it prompted his rep
rehensible conduct the evening before? Lust was certainly one of the emotions he felt for Delta Jarrett, had felt for her even before the sample he had taken beneath the light of the moon.
But lust wasn’t all he felt for her. She touched something inside him that defied identification. Something warm and familiar. Dangerously familiar. Warning bells sounded in his brain with the potency of that calliope.
Delta Jarrett, who the hell are you?
She looked up, saw him, and smiled. In that astonishing moment, the world seemed to glow brighter, as though someone had turned up the flame on a lantern.
Preposterous. Who was this woman? What kind of power did she hold over him?
Who the hell was she? A clairvoyant? A witch?
He scoffed at such thoughts. Those were ideas his mother would have come up with. His mother, who not only believed in witchcraft and all things psychic, but practiced them, although he’d never put stock in the psychic abilities she claimed to possess. Her curative powers derived from her knowledge of herbs and potions, from her skill at diagnosing ailments and prescribing treatments. That’s what he had always believed.
He had never believed in witchcraft. But there stood Delta Jarrett, drawing him to her with those melancholy blue eyes, eyes that attached themselves as with a steel trap to his soul and seemed to pull it right out of his body.
No, he had never believed in witchcraft, but he had never before felt himself drawn by some intangible force to another human being, either.
Suddenly the man beside Delta moved within Brett’s frame of vision. An elderly man, he noticed, who was talking, nodding his balding head, and waving his walking stick in the air.
The walking stick diverted Brett’s attention, but it was Delta’s notepad with pencil poised over it that captured it. Delta’s notepad on which she took notes to write articles to send back to a newspaper in St. Louis.
A newspaper that could ruin his chances of completing this harmless journey and returning to his Canadian haven beyond the United States border, beyond the authority of United States marshals and courts of law.
Angrily he tore his gaze from her and spurred his mount up the hill Gabriel had directed him to take. He would finish this meeting and he would stay clear of that blue-eyed witch.
He would.
But throughout the meeting with his warehouseman at Cape Rock he found his mind wandering to her eyes, her smile, the taste of her lips, the feel of her curves against his hard and lonely body. By the time he concluded his business and headed back to the Mississippi Princess, his mind was clear on how to proceed.
“Ol’ Thompson, he seems a capable sort,” Pierre suggested, when the two of them approached the showboat. Gabriel stood on the dock fiddling in a wild contest with a local musician.
Brett grunted.
“Good news that he can handle double the number of pelts we’ve been sendin’,” Pierre continued.
“Oui.”
“He might suggest someone to handle operations up St. Paul way, non?” Pierre questioned.
The two men dismounted at the dock, Brett’s mind still worrying with his decision, with implementing it.
“He might—” Pierre began.
“We’ll discuss it later. Find me that cabin boy—Orville, I think his name is. I have an errand for him.”
Pierre studied his nephew from beneath shaggy brows. “Ah, mon nèfyou, your brain, she is still in that rose garden, sure.”
Brett glanced back from hitching his reins. He opened his mouth to protest Pierre’s remark, then closed it and headed for the boat.
By the time Delta finished her interviews, met Zanna, and returned to the boat, the rest of the crew, who had also returned, were taking lunch in an open-air dining area off the paddlewheel lounge.
Still shaken from her latest encounter with Brett, Delta was determined to pursue her plan to investigate the man. She took the seat Albert dragged up for her and agreed to the chicken salad sandwiches and iced tea the steward suggested. But her mind remained on her target.
Granted, her original decision had sprung from the anger his rough handling had engendered the evening before. But now she was able to see him in a more objective light, she told herself. Here was a man with a devious past to hide. She was sure of it.
Why else had he been so alarmed to learn that she was a journalist? The instant Captain Kaney mentioned her occupation at dinner the evening before, Brett had ceased all conversation with her. Afterwards he had precipitously left the dining room, when earlier he had indicated an intention to remain for the theatrical performance.
Those mysterious actions coupled with his later accusation that she was spying on him left her to draw only one conclusion: M’sieur Brett Reall had a past to hide and he was nervous as a caged polecat that she would unearth it.
But their visual encounter outside the city hall had left her with a more important reason for uncovering the truth about Brett Reall. He terrified her. More than anything before in her life, more even than those dreadful nightmares, he frightened her deep down inside in a manner she could neither understand nor identify.
It wasn’t a fear like of rabid dogs or violent men. Rather, it was a fear of the unknown, of the strange sort of power he seemed to wield over her, as if he could see into her heart, into her soul.
That, she knew, was nonsense. No one could do that. But his penetrating gaze pierced her in a way she had never experienced before. And if her heart didn’t see this as a threat, then her brain would have to work overtime to convince it that a man of such mercurial mood swings, a man who managed to materialize at her very thought of him, was a man who represented danger.
She learned little from her afternoon’s interrogation. Albert merely shrugged at her question. “You know how rumors grow out of speculation, Delta. None of us knows anything about the man. He keeps to himself. His appearance at dinner last evening was a surprise. Since he boarded at St. Paul I’ve seen little of the man.”
Delta ate part of her sandwich, then asked, “Where does he usually dine?”
Albert shook his head. “In his cabin, I suppose. I’ve seen him and that companion of his in the dining hall a few times—off in a corner, secluded-like. Last night was his first time at the captain’s table.”
“Perhaps it was the first time the captain had invited him,” Delta suggested. She recalled all too well seeing Brett in the dining hall yesterday at lunch—the first time she had ever seen him. Or was it?
“Could be,” Albert replied.
“You say he boarded at St. Paul?”
“I said that, but you must understand, St. Paul’s where we boarded—Zanna, Frankie and Iona, and I.”
“What about Nat?” she asked. “And Elyse?”
Albert considered the question. “Come to think of it, Nat did board at St. Paul. Only he wasn’t a member of the cast then. He auditioned for Zanna after we got underway.”
“And Elyse? Do you remember when she came on board?”
“Sure do.” He smiled. “Hannibal. I’ll never forget the sight of her. A ragamuffin with the voice of an angel.”
“A ragamuffin? You mean she was an out-of-work actress at her tender age?”
“Not exactly. Such cases are fairly common. A pretty young thing dreams of running away from the harshness of life to join a glamorous theatrical troupe on a showboat. Happened all the time before the war. Why, some of our best actresses came into the business that way.”
Delta filed this information. Although she had allowed Albert to lead the conversation astray, she wanted to hear more about Elyse. She wondered whether Nat and Elyse had ridden up to Cape Rock. Since neither of them were present at the moment, perhaps Nat had taken her advice, after all.
She sighed. If he had, she hoped it worked out all right. She really should learn to keep her nose out of other people’s business. She had enough trouble of her own.
“Put on your thinking cap, Albert,” she said, wrapping up the conversation. “I want to write an a
rticle on these actresses who started out ragamuffins. You’ll be my primary source of information.”
On the way back to her room Delta thought about the things Albert had told her about Brett Reall and the many things he had not known about the man. Even before leaving the paddlewheel lounge, she began to wonder whether she was overreacting to the entire situation.
Brett Reall could well be a criminal of some sort. On the other hand, he didn’t have to be. Keeping to oneself and shying away from publicity did not make one a criminal.
And neither did looking at a woman the way he looked at her. She felt a strange sensation in the pit of her stomach at the thought that he might find her attractive. He was certainly handsome enough himself.
But he could also be a brute, as she had discovered the evening before. So she would stay away from him. If she happened to hear anything about him, fine. Otherwise she would avoid him.
In line with that, she merely peeked into the cabin lounge on the way to her stateroom. Mama Rachael was there, along with Mrs. Humphries and Mrs. Menefee and a couple of other ladies she had not met. And Brett Reall was there, sitting at the table with them, smiling, laughing.
Something warm fired inside her at the sight of him. Like at dinner the evening before, he was playing the perfect gentleman. Suddenly she entertained the fear that he would look up, see her, and his eyes would grow cold and hard, as they always seemed to do in her presence.
The moment his head began to turn, she darted past the doorway. By the time she reached her stateroom she was more convinced than ever that she must steer clear of Brett Reall.
Then she opened her door and found the surprise of her life.
Chapter Five
An apology from Brett Reall? Rereading the message that accompanied the enormous bouquet of roses on her nightstand, Delta’s hand trembled:
Please accept this attempt to apologize for my conduct last evening. In an effort to amend things between us, may I escort you to dinner? I will meet you at the lower entrance to the dining hall at eight o’clock. In anticipation of your acceptance I have alerted the captain that we will not dine at his table tonight.
Sunrise Surrender--Jarrett Family Sagas--Book Three Page 7
