by Rainbow
But the elation was soon overcome by self-loathing. In kidnapping her, he had done irreparable harm to her and to her masquerade. And yet she had given herself to him with a sweetness and passion he had never believed existed. And he had returned that gift with cruelty.
Quinn turned back to her, to where she was sitting huddled against the cabin wall in a shirt that dwarfed her. She looked like a desolate lost child, yet he knew she was neither. The Underground Railroad used neither fools nor children in the network. Meredith Seaton must be uncommonly bright and courageous.
Bloody hell, but he had misused her. The knowledge kept his eyes colder than he intended, his mouth grim. Terrible, pounding guilt racked him. And he hid that guilt behind the facade he had perfected.
When he took several steps toward her, she moved even closer to the wall. He noticed there were sparks of anger in her eyes as well as accusation. Furious defiance became evident in every stiffening bone of her body. He smiled slightly, his face taking on the crooked wry expression that was indecipherable. She was extraordinary. Really extraordinary.
He sat down and took her hand, holding it tight enough that she could not pull away from him although she tried. “That painting,” he said, nodding to the rainbow on the wall, “was bought at a shop in Cincinnati.” He watched as her eyes widened with apprehension. “It was,” he continued in the same even tone, “a station of a certain railroad.” He felt her fingers tense in his.
“I’ve been trying to locate that painter,” he continued as if there had been no reaction, “because his work is quite…exceptional.” Meredith’s face turned white, and if he had any doubts, they were gone now. “I wanted to find him to get more of his work and to tell him how very good he is. I’m telling you that now, Meredith.”
Meredith stared at him. There was an intensity in his face she could not fathom.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I saw a sketch of a fox in a certain Parson’s cabin. He is a friend,” Quinn said, his voice searching now, wanting to hear her confirm everything.
Meredith stared at him, at eyes no longer shuttered but sharing knowledge…and a regret that bit straight through her.
“As is Elias Sprague,” he continued softly. Her back was still stiff, her eyes still wary, and her hand still seeking release. “Damn it, Meredith,” he said, feeling more than a little pain that she didn’t trust him. His hand tightened on her wrist, demanding agreement.
If he had taken her in his arms, if he had said the words she longed to hear, she would have flung herself toward him with joy. But he did none of those things, and she knew with a certainty that he had made love to her only to discover what he wanted to know, not because of any feelings for her. It was, she realized, why he was remorseful now. Guilt, not love, had put the softness in his voice.
She suddenly hated him.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said coolly. “I do paint, but I don’t know any…who did you say it was? M. what?” Before he could answer, she continued on. “And I want to return to New Orleans. You can let me off at Natchez. I’ll say I’ve been kidnapped and I escaped. I wouldn’t want to see your brother disgraced.”
“Merry—”
“Meredith, damn you,” she said with no little fury. “You have what you wanted.” She would let him guess whether it was his assumption about her identity or her body she meant. “And you will let me go or I will make a scene neither you nor anyone else will forget.” The terrible stabbing anguish, the deep aching rejection that she had experienced once before, boiled into an anger so deep she was shaking. She had felt empty before, but never like this. Never like a shell with its core ripped out and exposed.
And that was what he had done. He had exposed her need, her weakness, her vulnerability. No one had been able to do that before. No one.
“Meredith,” he tried again, seeing some of the pain writhing inside her, knowing he was responsible. He remembered how curtly he had left her after making love to her—no, after they had made love to each other—and he could have driven a stake into his own heart. He swallowed, seeing how her eyes had changed from shining curiosity to bitter distrust. He was still holding one of her hands, and his other one went to her face, trying without words to apologize, but she was having none of it. She only looked at him with something akin to loathing.
She jerked her hand away from him. “Just go away,” she said. “Please.” It was the defeat in the last word that nearly unraveled him. He had kept his emotions bottled up for so long he didn’t know how to uncork the bottle, how to express any but the most superficial of feelings. From the look in her eyes, he suspected any attempt to soothe her would be rejected. She would accept nothing. The distrust in her eyes was too strong. She felt used, and he knew that feeling, knew it only too well. He felt a complete helplessness, but still made a move toward her until she shrank back from him.
He swallowed against the hard lump forming in his throat and he knew he had to leave, had to give her time, give himself time. Quinn slowly nodded and walked quietly to the door. He unlocked the door and left almost soundlessly.
Meredith saw that he didn’t take the key with him. He had no reason now to lock the door. He knew who she was, at least in part, and he also understood she was of no danger to him, to whatever it was he had to hide. Only now did she remember that she had told him much, if not everything, and he had told nothing. Nothing at all.
The nagging doubts returned. Who was he? What was he? And why couldn’t she resist him? For she had learned tonight that she could not. What else would she eventually tell him? What danger might she put others in?
But that was not all of it. Even if he was, as he had suggested, a member of the Underground Railroad, he had used her. It was only too obvious that he did not have the slightest feelings for her. She closed her eyes in pain. When he had touched her, she had believed otherwise. For one glorious moment she had believed that he really cared.
Fool! As much a fool as she so often pretended to be. She knew then she had to get away from him. No matter who he was. No matter what he was. She had been terribly shameless with him, and even encouraged him, but then she had deluded herself that he wanted her too. Wanted her for herself, not for what he could seduce out of her mouth.
For the first time in nearly fifteen years, she cried. Cried as if her heart had shattered. And it had.
Chapter 16
QUINN HESITATED outside the door, not wanting to leave but believing it was the best thing to do at the moment. He was almost as bewildered as she and he needed to sort out his thoughts. Damn, but he needed to do the impossible.
Meredith had touched a part of him he never thought could be touched again. Yet his life had no place for someone like her.
He lived from day to day with risk, never knowing what was beyond the next bend. Until now, he had never wanted to know. Life had a way of playing tricks on the best prepared plans, and though he would take responsibility for his own life—and for those he helped—he could not sacrifice another human being. Too many people had already been hurt by him.
Cam was different. Cam knew the risks as well as he, and he had an anger as great as his own, and a need as deep to channel it. To do otherwise was to die in another way. But Meredith? How could he endanger her?
And himself? He doubted whether he still had the ability to get close to another person. There was even a barrier between him and Cam, as closely as they were pulled together by common purpose and common danger. Part of it, he knew, was because Cam probably could never entirely trust a white man. But part of it was also due to himself. He didn’t think he could ever again risk the pain he had felt when Terrence died. Even recalling the memory was like stripping skin from body, exposing raw red wounds that were as agonizing now as they were five years ago.
He looked at the lock and felt for the key in his pocket, then realized he’d left it behind. He couldn’t force himself to return, not without being prepared
to offer Meredith more than he dared. Besides, where would she go? They were on the river now, and would be until they reached Natchez the next day.
Christ, what a mess he had made of the whole matter. What a complete, disastrous mess. He thought about Meredith hunched against the wall and he wanted so badly to go to her. And do what? Tell her about his life? That he was a murderer? An escaped convict who was wanted in England? That there was no future because of the past? He looked down at his callused hands in self-loathing. If only she knew how they came to be that way…
With dragging steps, he climbed up to the pilot house, which stood alone like a watchful sentinel over the restless and often treacherous river. Jamison greeted him with his usual smile, which was little more than a twist of tightly pressed lips.
“Mr. Devereux,” he acknowledged. Despite the number of times Quinn had asked him to use his given name, Jamison refused. It was not the correct thing to do with one’s employer.
“Do you have any of those cheroots left?” Quinn asked. He had given Jamison a box of the finest cigars from Cuba, and the man hoarded them as if they were gold.
“Aye, sir,” Jamison said with a certain reluctance. He hated to part with one of the treasures.
“I’ll replace it, Mr. Jamison,” Quinn said with a slight, crooked smile. Since Jamison refused to call him Quinn, he refused to be any less formal.
“That’s not necessary, sir,” Jamison said, but his eyes warmed a bit. He went to a wooden box and almost reverently took out a long thin cigar wrapped in chocolate-brown leaf and cut square at both ends.
Quinn took it and bit down hard on the end, chewing with a vengeance not entirely necessary. “When will we be in Natchez?” he asked, after the steamboat pilot lit it.
“Just after dawn,” Jamison said.
Quinn nodded and turned to leave.
“Mr. Devereux?”
“Mr. Jamison?” Quinn spun around, one eyebrow raised inquisitively.
“I’ve been hearing that there are questions being asked about the Lady.” He said the last with a caress. Quinn had often thought his boat was Jamison’s one and only love.
“What kind of questions?” Quinn’s voice was lazy, unconcerned.
“About our cargo. Our stops. Anything suspicious.”
“Do you know who was asking them?”
“Brothers. Name of Carroll. They’ve been with us several times.”
Quinn stiffened slightly. He did not like undue curiosity. Nor did he like Jamison getting involved. Jamison did not know about the secret compartment, nor about any of the illegal cargo, although Quinn knew he must have suspicions. Jamison was not a stupid man, but he was a discreet one, who minded his own business and who was, Quinn knew, immensely loyal. Quinn nodded once in acknowledgment of the information and left the cabin, pausing on the upper deck.
Dusk was falling, and the sky was turning vivid shades of crimson and vermilion in the west. He looked down at the men below, scurrying to light the oil lamps that adorned the decks. In minutes, the boat would be a fairy-tale land of flickering lights and crystal, echoing with laughter and conversation and music.
And one deck below, in a cabin once his sanctuary and now his hell, was a young woman whose eyes haunted him.
He despised himself more than he ever had before. When he had left, her eyes were those of a wounded fawn, baffled by a cruelty it couldn’t comprehend.
Quinn had never thought he could feel anything for a woman again. Not after Morgana’s treachery. And yet from the very beginning, Meredith Seaton had stirred something strong and vulnerable and even tender in him. He had not understood why until today, when he fully comprehended the extent of her courage and intelligence.
He leaned over the railing and chuckled ruefully. Even he had been duped, and that was not easily done. He was usually too wary, too instinctive of danger.
But even faced with his accusation, Meredith had revealed little. She was wise enough not to deny; she had simply ignored his assumptions, leaving that insidious cloud of doubt. And she had continued that tactic even after he had…
Had what? Made love to her. Taken her maidenhood, and then left her coldly without a word of tenderness. His hands clenched the railing. He had excused himself then because of his suspicions. But he knew he was wrong. He’d been fighting his own demons, the fear of trusting, of giving part of himself again, the fear of loving again, or having someone love him. It had always led to disaster. People died around him. He didn’t think he could bear another death. Especially hers.
What was she thinking now? Was she hating him? How could she not? He had destroyed everything for her, including the life she had created just as surely and carefully as he had his own. He couldn’t stop the groan of intense pain that started in his heart and stuck in his throat, finally expelling it like the moan of a soul lost in hell.
He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, wondering how he could right things. But finally he made his way back to Meredith. Merry. He didn’t know why he wanted to call her that. He had seldom seen any but the solemn side of her except the few times she had teased him in her role of foolish Meredith. He smiled as he remembered that dinner party the first night she was aboard the steamboat, and she had so neatly excluded him from the ranks of gentlemen. It had proved a prophetic barb.
Yet there had been a certain delight, an obvious joy in the drawing of the fox, a mischievous touch that he suspected lurked deep inside her, along with that passion she had gifted him with, and which he had seemed so casually to toss aside.
Quinn knew such thoughts were doing him—and Meredith Seaton—little good. Somehow he had to find a way to mitigate the damage to her life. His footsteps heavy, as if the old chains were still binding him, he returned to his cabin.
He was surprised to find the door still unlocked. For some reason, he had expected her to turn the key, or bar the doorway with a chair or table from the inside. Quinn’s hand hesitated before turning the knob, a certain premonition making his fingers tremble. Finally he opened it and stepped inside.
The cabin was dark, lit only slightly by the flickering flames of a lamp hanging outside on the deck. The curtains were open. The bed, with the sheets still tousled and stained, was empty.
But there was no sign of Meredith.
Meredith coughed and stumbled out of the water. She was almost frozen, and every movement was a supreme effort. Her breath came in short desperate gasps and her legs seemed nothing more than stiff boards. Rigid fingers untied the oilcloth she had found in Devereux’s trunk, and she took out a towel wrapped, for extra protection, around her dress and cloak. The towel, thank God, was dry.
She’d survived the whole terrifying episode: the initial shock of the cold water; the several seconds of paralysis until stark terror set her arms moving.
Desperation had forced her to leave the boat. The same desperation drove her to fight the cold and current. Both acts were based on pure survival. She knew Quinn Devereux’s effect on her, and she didn’t think she could bear to see him again, or see the mocking smile and remote eyes. It had been obvious when he left and didn’t return that he had cared nothing for her, less than nothing. For the first time in a long time, she had offered something of herself to another person, and it had been taken, used and discarded as if it were nothing but an old unwanted shoe. The hurt was worse than anything she had ever known. She bent over in silent agony, her hands digging into the hard earth as if to seize some comfort from it.
It was nearly full night; only a last slash of red at the horizon remained. She finally straightened from her tortured position and took stock of where she was. She had emerged from the river into a damp swampy area inhabited, she knew, by inhospitable creatures. But then, she thought, any one of them would be less dangerous than the one she had left on board the steamboat.
Shivering in the cool night, Meredith rid herself of the soaking shirt and trousers she had stolen from the cabin, and put on her dress and cloak. She should be warm enough t
o survive the night there. In the morning, in the sunlight, she would try to flag down one of the many boats on the river. She would claim she was kidnapped and brought upriver to be sold, and that she escaped. Her reputation would be in tatters but that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered at the moment but escaping those cold emotionless eyes of Quinn Devereux.
The Lucky Lady was gone, the twinkling lights faded from the dark brown of the Mississippi. They were replaced by stars in the sky, sparkling diamonds on a midnight-blue cloth. The trees rustled slightly in the wind, and water splashed against the banks. Everything was as it should be, as it was yesterday and would be tomorrow. Everything but her. In the past hours, she had discovered a part of herself she never knew existed, but she had lost another part: the core of her. Her heart.
Meredith hadn’t thought she had any tears left, but one found its way out of an eye and wandered down her face. She thought about brushing it away, but it was joined by another. And another.
She had always been alone—but never had she been this alone.
Shivering against a centuries-old oak tree, Meredith made a vow to herself. Never, never again would she risk her heart. And God help Quinn Devereux if she ever saw him again.
Meredith had more trouble than she had envisioned in trying to flag down a boat the next morning. Standing in the cool wind that swept the river, she shivered as four vessels, including a large riverboat, ignored her frantic waving. She was finally rescued by a small packet heading north and carrying cotton. It was operated by a family of redheads, including a father and mother and their eight children, one a son her own age. Their name was McClury, and they were kindness itself when they heard her tale of being snatched off the streets of New Orleans, wrapped in a blanket and taken upriver for an unmentionable and obviously loathsome purpose.
“Oh, my poor dear,” Mrs. McClury said, her face wrinkling in concern.
