Straight For The Heart

by Marsha Canham

“Why, you little bitch,” he raged. “You’re going to pay for this. You’re going to pay dearly for this!”

  Amanda ran to the farthest corner of the cabin. There was nothing she could use for a weapon, but she started hurling anything and everything she could lay her hands on—books, ornaments, a cigar box, a paperweight. Most struck harmlessly on the wall and failed to do more than intensify the anger in Wainright’s eyes. He had her cornered and he knew it. Her arsenal was small and finite, and she had nowhere to go, no way to escape.

  “It’s no use, Amanda,” he said, setting the candle down on the table. “There’s no cavalry. No saints.”

  She sobbed and cringed back against the wall. The last thing she threw was a heavy metal canister and as it bounced off Wainright’s shoulder, the lid popped off and a full quart of whale oil sprayed his head and shoulders.

  He hardly noticed.

  He stooped suddenly, without taking his eyes away from Amanda’s face, and picked something up off the floor. It was the shard of glass she had used to cut him and as he turned it over in his hand, the bloodied edge glinted red.

  “Yes,” he whispered huskily. “We can still give your husband quite a show. One that will send him screaming into perdition.”

  Amanda whimpered helplessly and sank to her knees on the floor. Her hands scraped the wooden matchsticks and she closed trembling fingers around one, scratching it frantically on the smooth floorboards.

  The wooden stem snapped and she searched for another.

  Wainright was less than five feet away, the blood and oil mingling on his face to make him look like the devil himself. He was grunting, stretching out a hand to snatch at the gleaming tangles of her hair.

  Amanda screamed as the glass shard came slicing down at her. A thick, shiny skein of hair was severed inches shy of her scalp, and Wainright laughed, holding his golden trophy aloft.

  She struck another match and threw it, but the flame died before it had completed its arc. She saw his hand coming toward her again, saw the oil and the blood and the bright spark of light that reflected off the sliver of glass. She shrank back and bowed her head. Her hand struck the last match and as she felt Wainright’s fingers close around her shoulder, she thrust the burning match up and out.

  Ryan Courtland rose dripping out of the inky blackness of the Mississippi River and climbed hand over hand up the anchor cable of the silent riverboat. He was shivering from the icy temperature of the water. An oilskin pouch was clamped securely between his teeth and when he was over the rail, he darted behind a large storage bin and unwrapped the pair of modified pepperbox pistols Michael had provided. The chambers carried six rounds of lead grapeshot apiece. When fired at close range, it would have the devastating effects of a shotgun blast.

  He heard gruff voices and ducked his head below the bin.

  A peek was all he needed to see that Michael was being dragged along the deck by two burly men who had obviously not been pleased to discover the padlocks on the main door of the salon.

  “There’s always a back way,” one of them insisted. “One that won’t have so thick a lock.”

  “Yeah, well, I still say we shoulda just shot the danged thing off and the hell with worrying about the noise.”

  Ryan smiled grimly and surged up from behind the bin, firing both guns simultaneously before the two startled captors could react.

  One volcanic round of scattershot found its mark on a shoulder, tearing away flesh, muscle, and bone, and sending its victim spinning backward along the deck. The second volley was aimed wide, and luckily so, for only half of the shot found its mark, peppering the man’s face and barely missing Tarrington’s head as he lunged out of the way.

  Michael somersaulted across the deck and sprang to his feet. One of the thugs was still standing, groping for an ear that wasn’t there, and Tarrington ripped the rifle out of his hands, ramming the butt into the bulging paunch and sending him crunching through the rail and over the side of the boat. The man sank like a stone, but Michael could still hear screaming. Ryan heard it too, but it was coming from the stern of the paddle wheeler, echoing with enough fear and horror to make the hairs on his neck stand on end.

  “Amanda!”

  Michael was already on the run, pounding past the huge, silent wheel and into the blackness of the ship’s belly.

  Amanda stared at the flaring match in her hand, then at Wainright’s face looming above her. She felt rather than saw the soft hiss and fwoomph of the oil-soaked cloth of his sleeve exploding into flame.

  For a moment there was no reaction from Wainright other than a frown and a sharp curse. He dropped the wedge of broken glass and began dusting at the flames, his hands moving faster and faster as the flames licked up his arm to his shoulder. His curses turned quickly into shouts as the fire searched greedily for more whale oil. Bright yellow and orange fingers of it spilled down his chest, crawled up his neck and into his hair.

  Wainright tore at the burning jacket. He ran up against the wall and rolled his body on the panels in an effort to smother the flames, but his whole torso was engulfed. The oil had penetrated through to his shirt and skin. It had splashed on his hair, his eyes, his mouth.

  Amanda screamed and ran for the door. She tugged frantically at the handle, but it was locked and Wainright had pocketed the key. Behind her, she heard the crash of a body hitting the floor. Wainright was still screaming, writhing, rolling around in an attempt to smother the flames, and as he did, the oil that had splashed on the floor caught fire and raced toward Amanda’s feet.

  Michael took the stairs to the crew’s quarters three at a time. The companionway was filled with thick, oily smoke and a stench that flashed him back onto the deck of a flaming ironclad. Twelve of his crew had been trapped by fire and it was a smell one did not soon forget.

  “Amanda?”

  “Michael!”

  There was terror, pure and clear in her voice, and he flung himself against the door, feeling the heat, hearing the flames crackling hungrily on the other side. Ryan came up behind him and they both put their shoulders to the wood but it was no use; the door was teak and the lock solid brass.

  “Move out of the way!” Michael shouted, and aimed the rifle at the lock. The bullet blasted into the wood, splintering the teak and weakening it enough for their weight to shatter the seat of the lock.

  The inside of the cabin was an inferno. Michael threw his arm up across his eyes and searched desperately for Amanda. She was standing on the cot, pressed as far against the wall as she could go, kicking frantically at the flames that were lapping at the hem of her gown and wrapper.

  Michael plunged into the wall of flame. The air was scorching hot, sucking the breath from his lungs faster than he could think to hoard it. He did not think at all as he ran for the cot and swept Amanda into his arms. He turned blindly and followed Ryan’s shouts back to the door, his eyes streaming, his senses beginning to spin from the heat and smoke.

  Heaving past Ryan, he heard a shouted warning but was not able to register the words through the thunderous panic beating through his body. He vaulted up the stairs and did not think to do more than tighten his grip on his wife’s limp body before he crashed through the wooden rail and plummeted into the swirling darkness of the Mississippi River.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Dr. Dorset was frowning as he emerged from the hotel bedroom and joined the two anxious men in the sitting room. Michael Tarrington’s face was streaked with grime and soot. His cheek was bruised and swollen, both eyebrows were nearly singed away, along with a healthy swath of chestnut hair. What remained stood out in spikes above his ear. His hands were badly scorched and the cause of Dr. Dorset’s tongue clucking on the roof of his mouth.

  “I’ll have a look at those hands of yours now, young man,” he said with kindly concern.

  “Never mind my hands. How is Amanda?”

  Dr. Dorset ignored Michael’s rude rebuff and opened his bag. “She has come away with a rather nasty cut on her ha
nd, which I have stitched and which will bear watching closely for any signs of infection. Thanks to someone’s quick thinking, she is not as badly off as she could have been —the dunking in the water is what saved her, there is no doubt in my mind. The burns to her arms and legs could have been much worse.”

  “Then she’ll be all right?”

  “For the most part, yes, I would say so.”

  “What do you mean,” Michael asked quietly, “for the most part?”

  Dr. Dorset pursed his lips. He was a portly man with sparse gray hair and a multilevel presentation of chins that accordioned in varying shades of red as he bowed his head and sought to choose his words carefully. “It is always a horrific thing to see a human being die from fire. It can only be worse when you feel you are to blame.”

  “Wainright was going to kill her,” Ryan protested angrily. “She did what she had to do out of self-defense.”

  “Yes. Yes, of course you are quite right and you will hear no argument from me—or anyone else, for that matter. All I am saying is that she will require a good deal of support and understanding. This entire incident is bound to play on her mind for some time, and … what with everything else that has happened tonight …” His voice trailed away and he shook his head at the incomprehensible tragedy of it all.

  The bodies of Alisha von Helmstaad and Joshua Brice had been found earlier in the evening. The military official who had responded to Michael’s summons regarding Forrest Wainright’s demise had recognized the Courtland name and had told him of the grisly discovery made in a cheap hotel room not half a mile away. Had Michael known his sister-in-law was also the legendary Montana Rose? The bloodstained dress, the money, the furtive waterfront hideaway she had shared with her lover for the past several months … they were all pieces to a puzzle that, once put together, would undoubtedly rock the old Natchez society to its foundations.

  Michael didn’t give a damn about Alisha or Josh Brice or the pinch-faced gossips of Natchez. Nor did he want Amanda to hear about any of it just yet either. In a day or two she might be strong enough to absorb the horror, but not tonight.

  “May I see her now?” he asked the doctor.

  “In a little while. Let Mrs. Dorset finish fussing with her. I’ve administered a mild dose of laudanum for the pain and, hopefully it will help her sleep. She needs pampering and bed-rest. She will be needing all the care and attention we can give her over the next few weeks, especially if she isn’t to lose the child.”

  Michael’s eyes flicked up to the doctor’s face.

  “Quite frankly, son, I don’t know. She’s young and she’s strong … but I won’t lie to you. Her body has been subjected to several severe shocks and is likely to endure several more in the coming days. Babies can be tenacious little things, however, and oft times, if they are loved enough and wanted enough, they can prove to be just as stubborn as grown men and women. And speaking of stubbornness”— he harrumphed and his tone became businesslike—“if you don’t let me have a look at those hands of yours, you’ll be going directly against my orders not to upset my patient any further.”

  Michael hesitated a moment longer, then relented and allowed the doctor to steer him into a nearby chair.

  Ryan paced to the window. The hotel was on the waterfront and afforded a spectacular view of the flames shooting out of all three decks of the Mississippi Queen. Unable to be saved, she had been cut adrift and pushed out into the middle of the river, there to be nudged and prodded away from shore by tugs and waterboats while she burned gloriously into her watery grave.

  The river could easily have become the grave for all of them, Ryan reflected grimly. Brian Foley had earned a broken arm and a bullet in the thigh dealing with the watchdogs Wainright had left on the dock. Amanda had been unconscious and half drowned when she was pulled from the water; Tarrington had not fared much better. How he had not collapsed completely was beyond Ryan’s comprehension. Sheer Yankee obstinacy had kept him upright long enough to see them into the hotel and to dispatch help for Amanda, Foley, and the Queen.

  Ryan was mildly scorched himself, mainly from trying to keep the door clear of flame while Tarrington tried to reach Amanda. His throat was raw from the smoke and from screaming at Tarrington to run for the river, that his and Amanda’s clothes were on fire.

  When Michael’s hands were salved and bandaged, he joined Ryan by the window.

  “She’s almost gone,” Ryan said, staring at the burning hull. “It’s a pity they couldn’t do anything to save her.”

  “No. In a way, I’m glad they couldn’t. I just hope she takes the bad memories with her.”

  Ryan glanced over at him. “Surely they weren’t all bad— the memories, I mean.”

  Michael arched what was left of an eyebrow. “Most of them were wild, reckless, without any real aim or purpose. I won her in a card game, just after the war. I was a little wild and reckless myself, wondering what the hell we’d fought all those years over, sick of the blood and the death and the killing. The Queen was a beauty. Elegant, lush. A man didn’t have to think about anything, worry about anything when he was on board. He just had to sit back and drink it all in, all the life, the laughter, the beauty.

  “The first time I saw Amanda,” he continued softly, “I felt the same way. She damn near took my breath away and I think … I know I started falling in love with her the instant she walked up to the table and announced she wasn’t like anyone’s sister, wasn’t like anyone’s mother, and sure as hell wasn’t like anyone’s wife. Because she wasn’t. She wasn’t like anyone I had ever met before.”

  The admission came out so matter-of-factly that he and Ryan found themselves staring at one another.

  “I do love her, you know. I knew it that first night, and I’ve known it every day and night since.”

  “Have you told her that?”

  Michael offered a self-deprecating smile. “Do you know the feeling you get when you see something so exquisitely perfect, so inexplicably right … that you know it must be wrong—or at least wrong for you—and because you fight it, you end up making a complete ass of yourself?”

  Ryan thought of Dianna and his jaw worked against allowing any acknowledgment beyond a muttered, “I think so.”

  “Believe me, I’ve wanted to tell her. A hundred times. A thousand times. Things … just kept getting in the way.”

  “Things … and people?”

  Michael’s gaze encompassed the grimy blonde hair, the bruises and swellings and beet-red sheen to Ryan’s skin that was not all entirely due to the recent scorching, and his smile was honest, if slow to form. “You didn’t make it any easier.”

  “Well …” Ryan glanced at the bedroom door as it opened and Dr. Dorset’s wife came bustling through. “There’s nothing—and no one—standing in your way now. Why not go in there and make us all feel a little less like asses?”

  Michael continued to search the depths of Ryan’s eyes for a long moment, then held out a bandaged hand. “Thank you. For everything.”

  Ryan took his hand willingly enough, but his smile was wry. “Don’t thank me yet. Tarrington. Wait a year or two until we see if this partnership business works.”

  Michael’s spirits remained buoyed until he reached the door to the bedroom. At the threshold, however, his mouth turned to dust and his blood started doing curious little spins through his veins, causing a tightness in his chest and a contrasting looseness in his belly.

  Ryan made it sound so easy: Just walk inside, go up to the bed, and tell her you love her. Tell her you didn’t really believe her sister’s lies, even though she knows you did. Tell her you didn’t really think she cheated on Caleb Jackson, or that Verity could have been the product of an illicit love affair, even though you were keen enough and cruel enough to believe it when it was your pride and your manhood being contested. Tell her it was all a big misunderstanding and you’re smarter now. Tell her she can’t possibly still hate you, or mistrust you, or feel repulsed by you now even though y
ou’ve given her no earthly reason to be anything but.

  Easy.

  So easy, he was shaking like a leaf.

  The room was small and functional. There were faded yellow chintz curtains over the windows, a matching yellow coverlet on the bed, a utilitarian washstand, armoire, and four-poster bed the quality of which benefited greatly from the low-burning wick in the lamp. There was evidence of Mrs. Dorset’s fussing. Amanda’s wet and scorched clothing lay in a bundle in the corner along with the small pile of towels that had been used to bathe her face and clean away the mud from the riverbank. Two open tins of ointment and a glass vial of laudanum sat on the nightstand alongside a partially unwound roll of gauze bandaging.

  Michael noticed all of it and none of it. His eyes, from the moment he had entered the room and stepped tentatively to the side of the door to close it, had remained fixed on his wife.

  Amanda looked very pale and fragile against the stark white sheets of the bed. Her beautiful hair had been drawn back from her face and tied with a pink ribbon, artfully arranged in an attempt to conceal the raggedly cut handful over her ear. A single linen sheet was covering her, the lower half tented over her legs to keep the cloth from sticking to the heavy layer of ointment coating her skin. Her graceful, porcelain hands and forearms were slathered as well, the pungent ooze spread thickly over skin that was shiny red and blistered in places. One hand was wrapped loosely in bandages with only the tips of her fingers showing. Those same fingers shook slightly and curled against a tremor and, as he watched, afraid to move or make any sound to draw attention to himself, the brilliant blue of her eyes opened and turned slowly, inexorably to the shadows at the foot of the bed.

  “Michael? Is that you?”

  He moved closer into the light and saw her eyes widen at the sight of his own burned and battered appearance.

  “It’s me, alright,” he said lamely, passing a hand self-consciously over the singed spikes of his hair. “Not exactly the kind of look Beau Brummel might have introduced to society, but I think it could turn a head or two, don’t you?”