She nodded, lifting her arm to return the waves from below. Then fear gripped her. She turned to Brett.
“Will he recognize you?”
He shook his head.
“You’re sure?” She glanced back to the deck, but Mama Rachael and Cameron were out of sight.
Brett turned her chin with two fingers. Quickly he nipped a kiss on her startled lips. “I’m sure he won’t recognize me for a fugitive,” he said. His eyes probed hers. “But I’m afraid he may recognize me for what I’ve done to you.”
When his meaning registered, her eyes widened. “How?”
His fingers gently caressed her lips, then dropped to his side. “By the way you look at me, chère.”
“Then I won’t.”
“Good. I’d hate to find myself walking the plank like that disreputable fellow in your dreams. Especially now that life’s beginning to have a bright side.”
Mama Rachael and Cameron arrived soon after, giving Delta no chance to respond. But his words resounded through her head, bringing a gleam to her eye and a smile to her lips.
“M’sieur Reall,” Mama Rachael greeted Brett, “I will miss our ti’ games.”
“And I, madame.”
Cameron kissed Delta on the cheek, while she wondered whether she should introduce Brett, or whether Cameron would recognize the name and haul him off to jail.
Brett took charge of the situation by extending his hand. “Brett Reall, M’sieur Jarrett. Your cousin and I were enjoying breakfast on the river. We’ll pull up a couple of chairs—”
“No, thanks,” Cameron replied. Delta watched the way his eyes traveled over Brett. Releasing Brett’s hand, he placed a brotherly arm about her shoulders and drew her protectively to his side. When he continued, still speaking to Brett, his voice sounded unduly authoritative. “I promised Delta we would come to say good-bye. That’s all.”
Delta grimaced. With everything that had transpired since she last saw Cameron, she’d completely forgotten his promise. What if she and Brett had remained in her cabin? What if …?
“Where’s Zanna?” Cameron asked her.
“Zanna?”
“She promised to keep an eye on you.”
Delta’s chagrin turned to acute embarrassment. “I’m sure she knows she can trust me to have breakfast alone, Cameron.” Her words were intended to chastise, but she saw they didn’t work, for he began to interrogate Brett.
“How far do you plan to travel on the Mississippi Princess, Reall? That is the name you said—Reall?”
Watching Brett with held breath, Delta knew instantly that wasn’t his name. Why else would he so blithely give it to a Pinkerton?
“Oui, Reall,” Brett acknowledged readily. “I’m traveling to New Orleans …” Leaving the sentence hanging, he shrugged as if to say—not that it’s any of your business. Delta wondered why he had responded. A man wasn’t required to answer direct questions like that. A gentleman never asked such questions. Then again, family responsibilities had always superseded manners in the Jarrett family.
Mama Rachael broke into the tension. “I do hope you’re making the return trip, M’sieur Reall. I would so like to resume our ti’ games.”
Brett laughed easily with her. “So you can win the … ah, the shirt off my back, madame?”
While Mama Rachael continued to fawn over Brett, Cameron drew Delta aside. “Get your things together. You’re coming ashore with us.”
“What?”
“You could be in danger on this boat, Delta. I can’t allow you to continue.”
“From what?” She glanced toward Brett, then back at Cameron. “Or from whom? A gambler?”
“He isn’t a gambler.”
Her heart thudded to a stop. She prayed it didn’t show.
“But no, not from Reall—whoever he is.” He grinned. “Unless you watch too many sunrises with him.”
Delta willed her face not to flush. “That’s my business.”
“Don’t get huffy, Delta. I agree. Your personal life is your own business. You’re a sensible woman. Ginny raised you right. Mama Rachael assures me that you are adept at keeping out of the clutches of cavaliers.”
“Cameron!” She felt herself blush in spite of all efforts.
He grinned. “She also believes that this gambler is the model of a perfect gentleman, even if he does play cards with little old ladies.”
Delta tried a laugh and partially succeeded. “Because he plays cards with little old ladies and lets them win,” she corrected.
Cameron laughed with her, then sobered as the first whistle sounded for guests to leave the boat. “It’s that bounty hunter I’m worried about, Delta. The one posing as an actor.”
“I promised to stay away from Nat, and I will.” She placed a hand on his arm. “This is an important trip, Cameron. I’ll be one of the few journalists to record the passage through Captain Eads’s new jetties. That’s why I came. I can’t—”
With pursed lips, Cameron stared out at the muddy river. “I have a gut feeling the fellow you call Nat lied to me the other night. He isn’t the sort to spend a few weeks on board a showboat unless there was a payoff. He’s after someone, Delta, and I don’t want you anywhere around when he finds his prey.”
“I won’t be, Cameron. I promise. I’ll stay completely away from Nat. But I’m not getting off this boat. Don’t you understand what this trip means to my career?”
“Your career?”
“As a journalist. Captain Eads’s jetties will make news around the world. I’ll be one of the privileged journalists—”
“Delta—”
“I’m going to New Orleans, Cameron. Aboard the Mississippi Princess. Don’t worry about me.”
He drew a deep breath, staring past Delta. Without turning she knew he was looking straight at Brett. She wished he’d never seen Brett.
“Tell you what,” Cameron said at last, “I’ll agree to you staying on board as far as Vicksburg. One of my agents there, a man named Stuart Longstreet, will meet the boat. If you’ve noticed anything out of line, or if Longstreet notices anything out of line, you must promise me you’ll stay in Vicksburg.”
She glared at him, pursing her lips.
“Your safety comes before any damned career.”
Still she glared.
“Hollis put me in charge at this point, Delta. Your welfare is important to all of us.”
“I know,” she said at last. “I promise to be careful.”
“And to get off the boat at Vicksburg if either you or Longstreet suspects trouble?”
She nodded.
“Promise?”
“Promise,” she repeated, because she knew if she didn’t he would never give up.
“One more thing,” he told her. “I want you to wire me from every port.”
“Cameron?”
“I’m serious, Delta. That bounty hunter’s dangerous.”
“All right. A wire from every port.”
He grinned then, reminding her of her brothers. It was tough to be the only single girl with six brothers and an uncountable number of male relations to protect her.
The last warning whistle blared through the tension. Cameron glanced toward Brett, then back to Delta. His words caught her off guard. “Be careful of that fellow, too. You shouldn’t trust a man who disguises himself, Delta, not even enough to dine with him on a crowded boat. You can find plenty of beaux in New Orleans.”
He hugged her good-bye, then dragged Mama Rachael away from Brett with a closing question Delta knew to be a final warning.
“Kale and Carson are meeting you in New Orleans, aren’t they, Delta? And Cousin Brady?”
“Kale and Carson?” Brett questioned after their visitors had left and the boat was underway. He held her chair and they resumed eating their now-cold breakfast.
“Two of my brothers.”
His eyes widened in mock dismay. “And Cousin Brady. I suppose they’re all as brawny as this one.”
She nodded, sm
iling. “You remind me of them in many ways. Kale, in particular.”
“Kale?”
“He’s the outlaw. Or was.”
Watching her over the rim of his coffee cup, he held her gaze for a long time.
Finally she changed the subject. “I thought we exorcised my nightmares last night, but now we have a new one.”
The crease between his eyes deepened. “What’s that?”
“Cameron is so suspicious of Nat he tried to take me off the boat. He’s sending another agent aboard at Vicksburg with instructions to remove me from the Mississippi Princess if he suspects danger.”
“Sure it’s Nat he’s suspicious of?”
She cast him a worried look, not daring to tell him that Cameron had instructed her to stay away from him, too. Finally, she laughed. “I didn’t look at you.”
He lifted his eyebrows in response, holding a biscuit smeared with plum jam to her lips. “Non, chère, you did not. After breakfast perhaps we can find a way for you to amend the slight.”
Chapter Nine
Love affairs, Delta soon discovered, were not easily conducted in the real world, not even isolated in the middle of the Mississippi River on a steamboat. No sooner had the waiter approached their table with a pot of fresh coffee, than Pierre appeared, his face a rigid mask.
“You are here, mon nèfyou.” He challenged Brett in clipped tones without so much as a glance at Delta. “Gabriel and me, we worried that you missed the boat.”
Delta dabbed her lips with her napkin, careful to avoid either man’s eyes. She knew her face glowed like the sun rising over the muddy waters.
“You knew very well that I did not,” Brett barked. Suddenly his warm hand reached for Delta’s where it lay in her lap. She felt his eyes on her face, but she resisted looking at him. He lifted their clasped hands and rested them together on top of the table. “I don’t believe you and Pierre have been properly introduced, chère.”
She glanced at Brett, then. The smile in his eyes hadn’t reached his lips, nor his voice when he introduced her to his bodyguard, a man he called Pierre.
Pierre bowed slightly from the waist. “M’moiselle.” His expression did not soften. He returned his eyes quickly to Brett, demanding, “We must talk, yes.”
“Fine,” Brett replied. “Pull up a chair.”
“Non. Not right here.”
Alarmed by the man’s combative tone of voice, Delta glanced involuntarily at him. His eyes were fastened on her hand, which still lay inside Brett’s clasp. She wriggled her fingers to free them, but Brett held her tighter.
“I will take myself to your stateroom,” Pierre informed Brett. “Gabriel and me, we will wait for you right there.”
Delta watched the big man depart with as much dispatch as he had arrived, leaving in his wake a sickening dread. She turned to see vexation written in the implacable set of Brett’s jaw.
Her heart raced. “What’s happened? Are you in danger?”
“Danger?” His annoyance faded to impudent grin. “No, chère.”
“Are you sure? He sounded so … so angry.”
“If there was danger, Pierre would have been concerned, not angry, and we wouldn’t be sitting here. He would have whisked us off this deck before we’d known what had happened.” He squeezed her hand. “No, it seems we have more adversaries than your cousin, Cameron.”
She withdrew her hand, lifting her napkin to suddenly dry lips. “Adversaries?”
Leaning, he pecked a kiss on her lips. “You didn’t expect the world to sit by and let us fall in love, did you?”
Her stomach turned a somersault. “In love?”
He raised his eyebrows. “When a man spends the night with a respectable girl like yourself, he’d better be prepared to call it love.”
“Oh!” She looked down at her plate, frowning. “You don’t think they know about last night?”
“No, chère. They may suspect. Probably not your cousin, but I’m sure Pierre does since I didn’t return to my stateroom.”
“That’s nobody’s business but ours.”
“Oui, but … well, you must admit they have reason for concern. Your cousin wouldn’t want you falling in love with some no-account gambler, would he?”
She sighed, wondering whether she should tell him that his gambler’s disguise hadn’t fooled Cameron, if disguise it turned out to be. “What about Pierre?” she asked, shoving her confusion over Brett’s identity back into the recess she had made for it in her muddled brain. “What does Pierre have against me … ah, against us?”
He sipped from his coffee cup. “You’re a journalist.”
She pushed back a wisp of hair that fluttered about her face. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“I told you he’s my bodyguard. He’s also my uncle.”
When she still frowned, he finished with, “He doesn’t want you to expose me in the newspapers.”
“Expose you?” Suddenly she felt like Rip Van Winkle. Had she been living in a fairy tale the last couple of days and just now awakened to the real world?
Brett drew back her chair. “I must go see what they want. Meet me for lunch outside the dining room.”
Striving for levity, Brett entered his stateroom with a lively, “What’s up,” only to discover at once that it was the dander of his two companions.
“Your plan was to keep your eyes on her,” Pierre accused Brett.
“That’s what I’ve been doing.”
“Along with other parts of your anatomy, non?” Gabriel suggested.
Brett turned furious eyes on him.
“Find someone else to occupy your time, mon nèfyou,” Pierre advised. “That girl, she’s too risky.”
“In what way?”
“She’s a journalist, oui?” Pierre responded.
“An’ blood-kin to a Pinkerton agent,” Gabriel added.
“Oui.” Brett told them about his meeting with Cameron Jarrett. “He didn’t recognize me.”
“He will check on you, certainement,” Pierre warned.
“Why would he?” But Brett knew the answer to that question as well as did his cohorts. Hadn’t he told Delta the same thing even before Pierre put it into words?
“A respectable girl like her, I tell you, her kin will check out some no-account gambler she’s spending too much time with.”
Brett wet his lips, heaved a heavy sigh.
“For truth, you should lie low today and—” Pierre began.
“Lay off, don’t you mean, mon ami?” Gabriel chuckled. “Lay off that fetchin’ skirt.”
“Keep a civil tongue in your head,” Brett retorted. “If you have one.” The fact that their concerns were warranted rankled him. “God’s bones! We’re isolated on this river. What can a Pinkerton agent do to us here?”
“We won’t stay on the river,” Pierre reminded him. “We dock at some landing downriver this morning for a matinee. Tomorrow we arrive in Vicksburg.”
“A landing? They likely don’t even have a telegraph office, Pierre. You worry too much.”
“And you, you protest too much, mon nèfyou.”
With another heavy sigh, Brett flopped on the bed, clasped his hands behind his neck, and stared up at the ceiling. “I know. I lost my head. It must have been those blue eyes and …” His words drifted off in thoughts of all the other charms of Delta Jarrett. Not only her soft, receptive flesh, but her bright smile and tender heart. He thought of the way her eyes had come alive, lost their melancholy.
“She’s been dreaming about me,” he told them. “For months.” Sitting up, he stared at Pierre. “I told you she recognized me. Well, it was from her dreams—nightmares, actually. For months I’ve been coming to her in a nightmare, dressed like a pirate.”
“Sonofabitch!” Gabriel exploded. “You believe tha’ cock an’ bull?”
Brett’s eyes narrowed. “Are you calling her a liar?”
Gabriel bowed his neck, unyielding as always when a fight loomed.
P
ierre broke in. “Eh, there, you two.” He studied Brett. “Gabriel could have something, oui. You should give it some thought.”
“Why would she make up a story like that?” Brett objected.
Pierre shook his head, as though in amazement. “Women. How fast they worm their way under a man’s skin.”
Brett clamped his jaws together, glaring from one man to the other, waiting for their explanations to cool him off.
“She writes for a newspaper,” Pierre continued. “She wants the best stories on the river. And you, mon nèfyou, would make the biggest story of them all.”
Brett dropped his arms to his thighs and cradled his face in his hands.
Pierre continued to argue the point. “For truth, it was no coincidence, her turning up at Wint’s back in Cairo.”
Brett held his tongue.
“She might not intend to expose you, non,” Pierre offered, “but you must consider the possibility. You would make headlines from here to New Orleans.”
“Speaking of newspapers,” Gabriel broke in, “I don’ suppose you’ve seen the mornin’ papers.”
Brett shook his head, still encased in his hands.
Gabriel stuck a folded paper under his nose. “Bottom right corner.”
Brett stared at the headline through spread fingers: William Trainor, Governor of Louisiana, Vows to Run the Voodoos out of his State. Sitting up, he took the paper and scanned the article.
“This could be a trick to get you home,” Pierre suggested.
“My mother isn’t a Voodoo.”
“Trainor, he never recognized the difference,” his uncle reminded him.
Brett stared unseeing at the paper in his hand.
“He vowed vengeance,” Gabriel added. “Me, I doubt he’s forgotten.”
“He will never forget,” Brett hissed.
“One word about you in the newspapers and his henchmen would grab you before we reach the bayou.”
That, Brett knew, was the truth. “Oui, Pierre.”
“You will agree to lie … ah, to stick close to this stateroom, then? While we’re at that landing, certainement.”
“Oui.” As much as he hated to admit it, Brett knew they were right. “What about that bounty hunter?” he questioned. “What did you learn?”
Sunrise Surrender--Jarrett Family Sagas--Book Three Page 16
