Patricia Potter

by Rainbow

  The Lucky Lady returned to Cairo from St. Louis, but Quinn wanted no part of it. He couldn’t bear going into his cabin, nor did he want to spend time on the river. From his hotel room, he heard the band playing and the whistle blowing as the boat started its trek south. He cursed both. He closed the window and went to the bed, sitting and burying his head in his hands. When Cam returned that night and saw the captain still there, a nearly empty bottle by his side, he finally lost patience.

  “You can’t bring her back,” Cam said. “You goin’ give up everything now, let everyone down?”

  Quinn looked at him with haunted eyes. His mind had kept going over that last afternoon with Meredith, had continually seen the light fade from those brown eyes and watched them cloud with misery while he remained unable to express the slightest tenderness. And so he had left her when he should have taken her in his arms and…

  And what?

  Told her that he loved her? He had told Morgana that and she’d betrayed him. He had sworn never to utter those words to another woman. And yet during the hours in the cabin with Meredith Seaton he had felt things he had never felt before in his life. An aching tenderness that had crumbled all his defenses, a sweet passion that had made him feel young and invincible again. From the very first, there had been that curious, rare magnetism between them. Now he knew it was her spirit that had drawn him, the beautiful outrageous spirit that had somehow shone through her masquerade. And he had killed it. Along with the remnants of whatever soul remained in him.

  Through bleary and ravaged eyes he looked up at Cam. Cam, and the Underground Railroad, had saved him years ago. Perhaps they could again. And perhaps there was something he could do for Meredith Seaton. Her half sister! Perhaps there was a way to help her half sister. If Meredith worked for the Underground, it was possible she knew Levi Coffin, and the Quaker might have some knowledge of the missing half-sister she had been seeking. It was, at least, worth a try.

  The next day he shaved for the first time in days and then went to the wharves to seek passage on a boat to Cincinnati. He had left his horse on the Lucky Lady, knowing that Jamison would see it was well tended. He paid his bill at Sophie’s after an uncomfortable encounter with Sarah, the young mulatto who had declared herself in love with Cam. She wanted to know where Cam was. Quinn could only shrug, and her eyes had gone black with anger.

  Before he and Cam were to board the Ohio Star, Quinn went to Elmer Davis’s shop where he found the painting, discovering, ironically, that it had arrived in a shipment from his own boat two weeks earlier. Devastated, he found Cam, and together they boarded the riverboat to Cincinnati. Quinn had to find out about Meredith’s half sister, and he knew he had to tell Levi Coffin what had happened, to explain if he could, why one of his agents had disappeared. It would be the most difficult explanation he would ever have to make.

  Meredith wished she could share the Meriweathers’ Christmas spirit. The house was filled with evergreen and mistletoe, with packages and secrets.

  She had always enjoyed spending the holidays here, although she had sometimes felt like an onlooker. As much as the Meriweathers tried to make her feel like a member of the family, and as much as she tried to pretend it was true, there was always an emotionally detached part that proclaimed her otherwise.

  She did enjoy a certain freedom in Cincinnati, and could dress to her own taste. The Meriweathers lived a quiet life, and few, if any, Southerners from her class came to this Ohio city. She had never encountered a Southern acquaintance here, and she stayed away from the one fine hotel any might frequent. She needed this time to reestablish the real Meredith.

  Meredith had already purchased and wrapped her own cache of gifts. A book by Frederick Douglass for Mr. Meriweather, scarves she had knitted for Mrs. Meriweather, Sally and her husband and, newly added, a tiny baby blanket for the expected child.

  Restless to the point of madness on Christmas Eve, she went to visit Sally at her new home, and then decided to stop at Levi’s. She had had little time with him alone, and now she could obtain news of those slaves she had assisted. That, she knew, would be the best possible Christmas present. She had said nothing to him of her encounter with Captain Devereux, knowing that she would have more than a little difficulty explaining exactly what had happened.

  Levi was not at the mercantile store, and a clerk told her he had gone to his adjoining home. Meredith decided to visit him there; she had always liked Mrs. Coffin and particularly enjoyed the warm affection between the couple. Mrs. Coffin was a wholehearted supporter of her husband’s cause and frequently fed starving fugitives at any time, day or night.

  Levi opened the door quickly when she knocked, and she was greeted with a gentle smile. “I’m delighted to see thee,” he said. “Will thee not join us for some refreshment?”

  Meredith immediately felt better. There was something very soft and comforting about Quaker speech.

  She had no more than settled in a kitchen chair and accepted a glass of hot cider when she heard the sound of another knock. Levi and his wife exchanged looks. “It appears our day for visitors,” he said with a pleased smile, and went to the door.

  Meredith took another sip of cider, but the cup fell from her fingers and shattered on the floor when she heard a deep masculine voice. “Levi. I dislike calling on you at home but…there is something…”

  A tingle ran down Meredith’s spine. She desperately wanted to crawl under the table as she heard the approaching steps. Fastening her eyes on a hooked rug on the floor, she saw the mud-splattered boots first, and her gaze, reluctantly but uncontrollably, moved upward while the familiar voice stilled, its timbre echoing in the room. Or was it in her head?

  Or worse, her heart.

  Levi must have taken Captain Devereux’s coat, for the gambler was standing there in his usual tailored black suit although it was uncharacteristically dusty and wrinkled. His dark hair was tousled from the wind and the strong angular chin was shadowed and in need of shaving. She saw his eyes register shock; his hand started to reach out, then dropped to his side, his fist clenching. The muscles at his throat moved compulsively.

  The black man at his side had also gone completely still, and Levi looked from one person to another, baffled over the potent storm obviously brewing in his usually peaceful kitchen.

  “Captain Devereux,” he started, but the captain completely ignored him, his eyes fixed on the figure sitting as still as any statue.

  Quinn’s eyes drank in every detail of her presence. Good God, but she looked lovely, and it wasn’t only because he had never expected to see her again.

  Her hair was down, flowing over a red dress that made the most of her deep brown eyes. They were as startled as he knew his must be, and suddenly filled with the golden light he now equated with strong emotion. Quinn saw the broken cup, and the hand that was trembling, and he realized her shock was as great as his own. Years of practice, of hiding the deepest emotions, deserted him. He felt Cam’s hand on his back and he stiffened. But something inside him cracked, and he felt the most enormous need to laugh. To laugh from relief, from joy, from admiration.

  He bowed instead, only a ghost of a smile on his lips. “We do meet at the most…unusual times and circumstances,” he remarked, much more coolly than he felt.

  Her face flushed, and her eyes, which had looked trapped, caught fire and blazed. “I thought you reserved prowling for night,” she said nastily.

  “’Tis preferable to swimming at that hour,” he replied, the smile growing larger.

  “It depends on the choices.”

  “And how odious they are?”

  “Exactly.”

  Levi broke in. “I assume thee have met.”

  “Ah, yes,” Quinn said. “In fact, I came here to tell you of her demise.”

  “Her…?” Levi’s face, if possible, became even more puzzled.

  “She left the Lucky Lady last month,” Quinn said. “Between stops.” He turned back to her, his eyes very dark, very in
tense. “It was a damn fool thing to do.”

  The very intensity of his expression left her without a retort. His face was thinner than it had been, his bearing not quite as arrogant despite his challenging, teasing words.

  He didn’t wait for her to reply, and continued. “But I’m damned glad to see you alive.”

  Meredith heard the underlying strain in his voice, the concern, even the pain, and it startled her. She had not considered the possibility that he might believe her dead or that he might care. He seemed not to care for much at all. But as she slowly looked up at him, she saw the muscle throb at his throat, the only outward sign, she was beginning to learn, that betrayed deep feeling.

  “I swim well,” she said merely.

  “In the winter, even the strongest swimmer can die in those currents, or of the cold,” he said. “I’m sorry you believed it preferable to my presence.”

  This time she could not mistake the pain in the words, although they were spoken in the same light mocking tone. She realized with sudden insight that they were intended as an apology and self-accusation and, furthermore, that both were rare and excruciatingly difficult for him.

  She wanted to reach out to him, to drive away the shadow lurking in that handsome face, to touch the cleft in his chin. She no longer cared what he had done; she only wanted to ease the strain so obvious in his body.

  As if he understood, his mouth relaxed slightly and he looked once again at Levi. “Would you tell Miss Seaton that I am one of you and of no danger to her?”

  Levi had been studying both of them: the tautness of their bodies, the shock in each face as they saw each other, the flow of energy between them, which, if not wholly visible, was certainly strong and alive and vibrating.

  “It’s obvious thee know each other,” he said dryly, answering his own earlier question, which had been ignored. “Captain Devereux has been with us four years and has become our most successful conductor along the Mississippi line.” He turned to Meredith. “And our Meredith joined us when she was but fifteen. Thee did not know…?”

  Quinn turned to Levi. “Unfortunately, I only guessed several weeks ago…after I found her outside Elias’s warehouse and,” he hesitated a moment, “kidnapped her.”

  Levi stared at him with reproach. “Thee knows my feelings on violence.”

  “Aye,” Quinn said. “But I believed there was no choice. When I discovered later that she might be with the Railroad, she disappeared.” It was only half the truth, even less than half, and he thought Levi knew it from the piercing look he received from the Quaker. Yet Levi asked no questions, and Quinn was grateful.

  Quinn heard the uncomfortable uncertainty in his own voice when he looked at Levi. “May I talk to her alone?”

  Meredith started up out of the chair, more in retreat than agreement. “No,” she exploded.

  Once more, Quinn and Meredith received searching looks from the leader of the Underground Railroad. He saw the anguish in Meredith’s eyes and the determination in Quinn Devereux’s. His hand went out to her shoulder. “I think it well that thee listen,” he said softly, nodding to his wife and Cam to follow him as he left the room.

  “Levi?” she said in one last cry for help, but it was ignored. She felt, more than saw, Captain Devereux approach and gently guide her back into her chair, then take one next to it. She felt her hand being taken by one of his, and her chin being lifted by the strong callused fingers of another. She kept her eyes lowered, not wanting to see the face that had always fascinated her with its strength and secrets.

  “Meredith,” he said, and his voice, low and compelling, commanded her to look at him.

  Her eyes slowly moved upward until they finally met his, and she was instantly lost. For the first time since she had met him, they were unguarded, and she saw not the weeks of pain she had suffered, but years. Years and years of raw lacerating loneliness and something else, something she couldn’t define. Despite her resolve to keep away from him, she moved closer, her hand reaching up and touching his face as if to wipe away the horrors she was seeing there.

  The tenderness was his undoing. That she could have such a feeling for him after what he had done, after what he had made her do, was incomprehensible to him. “I thought…I thought I had killed you,” he said in a broken voice, and she suddenly understood his ravaged look as he came into the kitchen, the new shadows in his face.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t intend that…I just had to…get away.”

  His jaw worked. “From me?”

  “From the way you made me feel,” she said simply, knowing all the games between them were over. “And I thought…that you cared only to find answers to your questions.”

  “I knew the answers, Meredith. I think I knew them for a long time, but I needed the excuse…” His voice trailed off and he closed his eyes as he admitted the truth. He had known, somehow he had known. From that first dinner on the Lucky Lady, something inside him had told him Meredith was different, that she was special. It was why, he knew, he had taken the trouble to fence with her, to tease her, to enrage her. He had never done that before; he had merely used women, and dismissed them. As he had been used and dismissed.

  And he had nearly destroyed her because he had not been able to admit to any affection, any love, any emotion other than curiosity. His hand tightened on hers.

  “I’m not…very good at saying…”

  His stumbling words, so unlike anything she knew of him, sliced to her heart. She ached for him. She ached for herself. Neither of them had been very good at expressing themselves, except with their bodies. Perhaps that was why they had been so very good together that afternoon.

  The remembrance brought back sensations she had felt with him, red-hot sensations that even now were gathering strength inside her. But there was more, so much more. As she looked at his face, which was for the first time vulnerable, she knew it was love that beat so fiercely inside her. She swallowed hard, afraid of herself, more than a little afraid of him, and the stark raw emotions he unleashed in her. She was afraid to love him, afraid of what he would do to that love.

  It was as if he read her mind, and he wanted to say he would never hurt her. But he couldn’t. As long as he continued with the Underground Railroad, as long as she continued, the danger of loss was there, of death, of imprisonment. And there were his other dark fears.

  Desire hovered in the air between them: the need, the longing, the sweet wild craving that had always been there and that had been made stronger by their lovemaking.

  He wanted to say he loved her.

  She wanted to say she loved him.

  Yet years of caution, of hurt, made the actual words impossible for either to voice. But they were real. Very real.

  Meredith felt warmth running in honeyed streams throughout her body. Dear God, but she loved him. The realization was both like a knife to her heart and a balm to her soul. He would not be an easy man to love. Yet it was such a fine feeling, so giddily wonderful, to know she could.

  He smiled ruefully, fully understanding the battling emotions in her face. He felt them all too well himself. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to cry.

  Instead, his hand increased its pressure on hers, and he rose, gently bringing her up with him.

  “We have to talk,” he said simply, and she could do nothing but nod. If he had asked her to accompany him to hell, she would have done so.

  Chapter 18

  MEREDITH WOULD never know how he managed it on Christmas Eve, but Quinn found a closed carriage and, with a bill to the driver and an admonition to keep driving, he hustled her inside and took her in his arms.

  They had not even said farewell to Levi and the others. Quinn said they would understand. Meredith was not quite so sure, but his magic had once more wrapped her in a cocoon, making her oblivious to anything or anyone else.

  It was cool in the carriage and freezing cold outside. Dusk was forming and, from the glass windows, they could see the cozily lit homes
decorated with Christmas finery. Wandering groups of carolers filled the air with songs of triumph and joy and hope.

  They had always been bittersweet songs for Meredith, striking deep into the part of her that had always longed for family. But now, tucked under the strong arm of Quinn, she relished them, and her heart hummed along with the eager young voices and filled with a quiet but potent exultation of its own.

  There was a possessiveness in Quinn’s touch, an almost desperate quality that made her look up. His lips brushed hers lightly as if he couldn’t quite believe she was here.

  His hand traced the curves of her face. She had never looked so delectable, this silly Miss Seaton, who had been a member of the Underground Railroad since she was fifteen, who obviously could swim better than most men, who apparently thought little before plunging into a river and swimming to snake-infested shores, and who could paint with the best of artists. She was all that and more, he thought, as an uncertain smile formed on her face. The look in her eyes seemed to reach inside him and steal what remained of his senses.

  “You will never know what damned agony I’ve been through in the past weeks,” he said softly.

  “I thought…”

  He leaned down and kissed her mouth, his hand disentangling her hat from her head and running through the long honey-colored hair. His heart thudded as the kiss deepened, and his tongue entered her mouth with long scalding sweeps. He rejoiced as her own tongue responded, and met his. She was almost shy at first, but soon she was meeting his every thrust with one of her own. He could feel her body quiver with his slightest touch, and knew his own was doing the same.

  Could this really be love?

  He tore his mouth away and rained kisses up and down her face, then her neck and finally her throat, thinking how fine her skin was, how it tasted like spring flowers. He felt her hand move behind his neck and play with the hair that grew long there, and he loved every light touch. He had dreamed of this over and over again in the past fortnight, and now he groaned as the dream became reality.