by Rainbow
He pulled away and stared at her face, at the kiss-swollen mouth and eyes now misty. He had almost destroyed her once. He would not do it again.
“How did you come to be in Cincinnati?” he said finally, when the great ball of sadness cleared his throat.
“A girlhood friend. I’ve been visiting her and her grandparents for years.”
“Abolitionists?” It was a guess, but little else made sense. Something, or someone, other than her half sister had to have been involved.
She nodded, not sure whether she was relieved at the change of mood. She had been drowning in him, in his magnetism, in the feelings he always created in her, the feelings that disregarded practicality and the good sense she had always held dear.
“The painting was yours?”
She nodded shyly.
He grinned. “I found another. I think it came on the same trip we did, but I didn’t know it then. I was bitterly afraid it was your last.”
“The fields,” she said.
“The fields,” he confirmed. “It’s buried in one of my trunks. I didn’t think I could bear to look at it again. Now…perhaps…”
Meredith snuggled deeper into his arms. “I’m glad you like my work, particularly the rainbow.”
“Hmm,” he murmured, his temperature beginning to rise once more. She fit so well, cloak and all, into the planes of his own body. “There was someone else on that boat.”
She looked up with puzzlement.
“Daphne, your maid.”
Meredith clapped her hands with joy. “I’m so glad. I’ve been terribly worried about her. I’ve had…friends in New Orleans looking.”
Quinn couldn’t hold back a chuckle as she grinned and started laughing herself.
“We have been at cross-swords, haven’t we?” she said with a giggle, but it wasn’t the silly giggle he had heard in company. It was delighted and delightful, and full of amusement. “I had been trying to find a way of getting her North without giving myself away.”
“Despite the wonderful way she dresses your hair?” he asked teasingly.
“No one else has been able to do it quite that way,” she admitted with mirth. “She kept trying, in her quiet way, to do something else. I think she was quite distressed that I insisted on that particular fashion.”
He leaned back and laughed. “Perhaps that’s one reason I was desperate to get her away from you. I always thought your hair held a great deal of promise.” His fingers touched it now. “And I was right.”
“How did she escape?” Meredith asked.
“Cam abducted her from the hotel. We’d been trying to find a way to get her North. When you ended up in my…”
“Clutches?” she offered.
He ignored her observation. “We thought it best to get her out then…. We were afraid it might be the end of the Lucky Lady.”
“Because of me?” she said with amusement.
He shrugged. “There was always something…hidden about you. Brett said you always needed money, and I thought perhaps you might try to…”
“Expand my income?” She was bent over then with merriment. “I thought exactly the same about you. When you entertained the slave catchers…”
He had the grace to look discomfited. He could scarcely blame her for that. “It suited my purposes,” he excused himself.
Meredith sobered. “Why Daphne?”
He misunderstood the sudden change in her. “She wanted her freedom. When I was at Briarwood, Cam and I approached the Parson about her.”
Several things were becoming clear to Meredith, but still another suspicion lingered. “And found my sketch of the fox?”
“And of the Carroll brothers.”
“And how did the Parson explain that?”
“He said they came from New Orleans.”
Meredith’s expression turned thoughtful. “He could have told me about you.”
“And me you. It would have saved us a lot of trouble.”
They looked at each other and smiled again.
“Why do you think he didn’t?” Meredith asked.
Quinn shrugged. “Very few know my identity. Most of the slaves we carry don’t even know which boat they’re on. It’s safer that way.”
Meredith looked at him doubtfully.
“Or maybe he worried about what might happen if we got together.” He looked down at her and gave her that funny little half smile that hid so much. She could almost feel him withdraw from her.
“Don’t,” she commanded.
“Don’t what?” His brows wrinkled together.
“Don’t go away again.”
He understood what she meant, and he didn’t try to deny his purpose, but he touched her cheek longingly. He wanted to keep her with him, yet he knew it was dangerous for her and for the cause they had embraced.
Meredith sensed the battle going on inside him and changed the subject. “Where’s Daphne now?”
“Cairo, with some friends. Well hidden, I believe. We didn’t know whether…your brother might take ownership and come after her.” His face closed again at the specter of her imagined death, and she felt the tension in his body as he relived some of his guilt.
“She didn’t go to Canada?”
Quinn smiled, this time openly. “She didn’t want to be that far from Cam. This way they can see each other occasionally.”
“Daphne?” There was surprise in her voice. And then she remembered the time Daphne had come back from the barn and she, Meredith, had blamed Quinn.
“I think I have an apology to make,” she said with a hint of wry humor in her voice. It was strange how, all of a sudden, she felt so natural with him, so comfortable. Especially after hating him so bitterly during the past few weeks. But she had understood, in Levi’s kitchen, that he hadn’t just used her, that he had suffered just as badly, if not worse, than she.
He raised an eyebrow.
“I thought you wanted her. I thought that was why you wanted to buy her.”
He leaned back and let out a sound full of astonishment and humor. “So that’s why you were so hostile.”
“Well, I saw Cam’s back, and you indicated at dinner it was you…”
“That happened long before I found him. He’s as free as you or I now,” Quinn said, chuckling. “Was I that convincing?”
Meredith squirmed. “So much so I was afraid he was going to slit your throat that afternoon in your cabin.”
“You worried about me,” he said, touched by the revelation.
“I don’t like violence,” she retorted defensively.
“Tell that to the side of my head.” He grinned, and she thought how completely charming he was without the mockery, with a true smile on his lips.
“You deserved it,” she defended herself.
His smile thinned. “Aye. After, if not before.”
Her hand clutched his. “I thought you just…wanted information that afternoon.”
“Ah, darlin’ Meredith, I was scared to death of what I was feeling. I didn’t know what to do with it. I had to think. And when you were gone…” His voice was suddenly raw and ragged, all the amusement gone from it.
Meredith wanted to find out so much about him, but there was still a wall around him, one that warned about asking too many questions. Yet it felt completely right to be with him. Even as his prisoner weeks ago, she had felt oddly safe until that moment he had left her after making love. And then her own hurt, her own insecurity, had made her do something immensely dangerous.
“Why did you come to Cincinnati?” she asked.
“To tell Levi what happened,” he replied slowly. “And to try to find your sister for you.”
Her hand tightened on his. She needed no more assurance than that one statement. He understood. He cared. But as the silence grew uncomfortably long, she decided to tease him, to see how far she could get. “All of it?”
“All of what?”
“Were you going to tell him…everything?”
He c
hoked. “Everything,” he finally admitted.
“And now?”
“I’m delighted I don’t have to. The less said, I think, the better, though I think Levi will guess most of it.” His arms tightened around her as if he were afraid she would flee again. A laugh started down in his chest, and she could hear the faint rumble of it, like distant thunder. “I think Levi would say there was a plan somewhere, the way we keep smashing into each other.”
Meredith stretched her head up to look into gleaming blue eyes. “But whose?” she retorted with a small grin.
“I take it you mean the devil might be responsible,” he said wickedly.
The corners of her mouth went up impishly. “I was convinced of it for a long time.”
The carriage stopped, and the window between the coachman and passengers opened. Quinn thrust another bill up at the driver, and the wheels started rolling again. Meredith took a look outside. The sky was a soft gentle pink, and the sound of Christmas carols still wafted over the streets.
“He might,” she said, referring to the driver, “want to go home for Christmas.”
“His family will have a very nice Christmas,” Quinn said dryly. “I don’t think he’s unhappy.”
“We can’t stay here all night.”
“Why not?” he answered. “I can’t very well take you to my hotel room.”
“We can go to the Meriweathers’.”
“There will be people there?”
She nodded. “Many.”
He sighed. “Then that won’t do at all.”
“Everyone will wonder where I…we…are.”
He leaned down and kissed her very satisfactorily, his lips dismissing her concerns. “You have a delectable mouth, Miss Seaton,” he said on successful completion.
“Hmm,” she murmured, unable to find a suitable reply, considering the way her senses were spinning. She was oblivious to the clipclopping of horses’ hooves and the clack of wheels and the lurching of the carriage except when it threw her even closer to him.
There was only one reality, and that was Quinn Devereux and the fact that he had suffered over her and worried over her and, quite obviously, cared for her. Though he didn’t say the words she wanted to hear, he was conveying them in different ways, and she knew even that was extraordinary.
For minutes, there were no more words between them. It was enough that they were together.
Quinn felt his chest constrict and buried his fingers in her hair. “I like it loose this way,” he said.
“That’s one reason I like coming to Cincinnati,” she said quietly. “I can be myself. And you—is it safe for you to come here, to visit Levi?”
“That’s the advantage of my profession,” he said. “Levi is a merchant. So is Elias in New Orleans. Both have shipments going North and South, and my visits are both rare and circumspect. And though Levi is a known abolitionist, he’s careful to keep silent his connection with the Underground Railroad.”
“Does Brett know?”
Regret crept into his voice. “No. He believes exactly what the rest of the world believes—that I’m a scoundrel, a misfit, and a blackguard.”
Her fingers ran up and down his wrist comfortingly.
“And I am much of that,” he added warningly.
“I know,” she agreed cheerfully.
“Impertinent witch,” he observed.
“Arrogant wretch,” she returned. “Nothing like the boy who built a swing for me one summer day.”
He captured her fingers, which were making little designs on his wrist and sending great rushes of desire throughout him. He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed each finger, then turned the palm up and licked it with insidious insistence. When he was through, he nuzzled her ear.
“I thought you enchanting as a child. It was a terrible disillusionment when I met you on the Lucky Lady.” He shook his head. “That giggle.”
“No more so than I.” She grinned. “My knight in shining armor dining with slave catchers. I was appalled.”
“And I sat there wondering what had happened to the pretty little girl with the shining eyes.” His own were dancing with devilment. “Until you made that barbed remark about gentlemen, and a voice inside started nagging at me.”
“You brought out the worst in me.”
“I did, didn’t I?” he said with no little satisfaction. “I would see those eyes spark, and you’d try so damned hard to cover it up.”
The carriage stopped again, and the window opened. It was dark now, and the carolers had gone home, as well as most of the other carriages. Another bill, apparently of significant denomination, went up, and the creaking of wheels continued. “The man’s going to be rich,” Quinn remarked easily, deflecting the protest he thought was coming.
“Do you know we’ve been up and down this street twenty times?” she said.
“You’ve been watching,” he accused.
“No. I just know each time I’m going to be thrown against you.”
“Not often enough.”
“I’ll complain to the Cincinnati mayor that the streets are too even.”
He nibbled her ear. “Good idea.”
“Quinn…”
“Say it again.”
She obeyed, drawing out the short name seductively, making it sing in the small confines of the carriage. “Quinn.”
“I think we’ll stay, here forever.”
“The driver will have something to say about that.”
“Not as long as I keep handing him bills.”
“The Meriweathers will be worried about me.”
There was a long silence. “I don’t want to take you back,” he said finally.
He didn’t have to explain. Here they were in a sheltered place, where nothing could intrude, although questions lurked in the back of Meredith’s mind. Who exactly was Quinn Devereux, and why was he involved in the Underground Railroad? What had happened during the years he was away that now he risked everything?
But she didn’t require answers, anymore than he did. It was enough that they were together, that he had reentered her life and given it strength and substance and even glory.
Glory. Was that what she felt?
She knew it was seconds later when he kissed her. The wistful yearning of his lips, the quiet searching, caught her soul in a maelstrom, both violent and tender.
It was Quinn who finally drew apart. “Beautiful Meredith, Merry. Merry fits you, love.”
“Only because you make it so,” she whispered.
He held her tightly. “What do we do now, Merry?” It wasn’t so much a question as a groan.
She didn’t want to think of it. From the first moment she had met him she sensed he was not a man to be tamed, or tied down, or haltered in any way. And she had her own goal—to find Lissa—and her own small efforts against a system she detested. She suddenly realized why the Parson had said so little. There was no future together for the two of them.
But she would take now. She would take today, and tomorrow, and as much more as she could grab.
Meredith purposely misunderstood him. “I really must get back.”
“I know,” he said with a sigh. He tapped on the carriage and it stopped, the small window opening and the driver’s cold face looking at them inquisitively.
Quinn turned to Meredith. “The address?”
When she gave it, the window closed and the carriage clattered forward at a faster speed. She welcomed the lurching for it thrust them together one last time before the wheels would soon roll to a stop.
The house was glittering with lights, and the front door opened quickly as the carriage pulled up. Meredith watched as Quinn gracefully descended and pressed more bills in the driver’s palm and wished him a Merry Christmas. He then held out his hand to her and helped her out, standing with her in the night as the carriage moved away.
She hadn’t expected him to do that. She had thought he would protect his gambler’s identity. But he stood there patiently, w
aiting to be introduced, as the Meriweathers, Sally, and her husband gathered around, voicing concern which had obviously plagued them for hours.
“It’s my fault,” Quinn said with a quick charming smile. “Miss Seaton is an old friend, a client of my brother, and we started talking….”
It left Meredith with little choice but to introduce him, and he was quickly invited inside for Christmas cheer. She was startled when he accepted with alacrity.
She leaned over and whispered, “Cam?”
He merely grinned wickedly. “I think Cam will understand.”
“Is this wise?” she questioned.
“No,” he answered softly in her ear. “But I haven’t been wise since I met you.”
And then he turned from her and fastened his charm on the Meriweather family. She had seen him charm Opal and then her brother. Still, she was amazed at how easily he now worked the same magic on her friends. Within minutes, they had invited him to attend church with them, that night, and again to her surprise he accepted.
Sally winked at her approvingly as she tucked her arm under that of her husband.
Of all the strange things that had happened to Meredith since she’d met Quinn, none turned out to be more emotional than standing next to him in church, his dark face lit by flickering candlelight and his strong baritone voice dominating in the singing of centuries-old carols. Sally looked at him in complete delight, as her perfect soprano and his deep resonant voice caused every eye to turn their way.
So much for secrecy and subtlety, Meredith thought. But they were only small warning signals compared to the great joy of standing there with him, her arm tucked in his possessively, and feeling a part of Christmas for the first time in her life. Her heart swelled until she thought it might burst, but a tiny voice kept warning her it wouldn’t, couldn’t, last.
But it seemed, for the next few days, as if it might. He showed up Christmas morning with a small package. She didn’t even wonder how he managed to find something on Christmas. Nothing he did surprised her any longer.
His eyes gleamed as she took the small package and opened it to find an exquisite gold locket. It was by far the finest gift she had ever received, and Meredith clutched it possessively even as she knew she probably should not accept it. It was far too expensive for propriety, but then, she thought, she lived a life of impropriety.
