The fox-faced man grunted. As Lorna drew nearer, mounting the steps, she heard his reply plainly. “There are some,” he said, “to whom money means more than life, or death.”
The Englishman reared back to give him a stare. “Then, I say thank God for them! A pretty pickle you would be in, my good man, if there was no one willing to run the blockade into the Confederate states! The same might be said of the South, if it comes to that.”
Lorna, halting behind the pair, felt a real affection for the rather pompous Englishman. This did not change the fact, however, that the fox-faced man was correct. She glanced at him as he fidgeted, holding a cold pipe in one hand, the other clenched on the railing as he stared after the cruiser now disappearing into the darkness. He was clearly impatient of the company of the other man, and that only served to make her think she was right. She edged closer, slipping her hand into her pocket and closing her fingers around the derringer.
They heard distant firing, saw the shimmer of the flashes on the horizon. After a time, it stopped. There was much speculation as to which runner had been the target, but it died away and the night closed in again. They crept onward, with the ship’s officers glancing often toward the east, watching for the first light of dawn. The sky in that direction was growing less dark by swift degrees, and still they had not sighted the Big Hill that marked the batteries of Fort Fisher and the entrance to Cape Fear.
The ship appeared like a ghost. One moment there was nothing; the next, the flagship of the federal fleet lay directly across their path.
“Hard to port!”
The Lorelei answered on the instant, and they were steaming east, away from the river and back out into the blockading fleet; away, too, from the shoals. Almost at once, they saw a man-of-war moving toward them. On their present course, it would strike them amidship. The order to turn to starboard came clearly, if quietly, and they swung in a slow arc, easing in dead silence on a course that would take them between the two vessels.
Beside her, Lorna saw the fox-faced man dip his hand into his pocket and out again. He put his pipe between his teeth and started to bend his head. Lorna was ready. She brought out her hand and stepped to shove the muzzle of the derringer into the side of the whiskered man.
“Strike the match you have in your hand, sir, and you are dead.”
A match in the darkness. The flare of light, small though it was, would have been like a beacon, drawing the fire of the federal ships down upon them. The man cursed and swung, as if he meant to try to disarm her. From the other side came the quiet voice of the second officer. “I wouldn’t advise it,” Chris said, “unless you would like to give me an excuse to turn you into a sieve.”
“You wouldn’t risk the noise,” the fox-faced man said with a sneer, though he remained still, facing Lorna, with his hands held out away from his body.
“A good point, but it can be remedied,” Chris answered. Hard on the words, he raised his hand and struck the man a hard blow with his pistol butt behind the ear. The fox-faced man pitched forward, and Lorna, to prevent the sound of his falling, caught him under the arms, staggering back.
The second officer leaped forward, while the Englishman, staring with dropped jaw, collected himself and reached to grab an arm of the unconscious man. Together they lowered him to the paddle box.
Chris, staring at her across the inert figure as they crouched beside it, said softly, “Lorna?”
“Not now, if you please,” she said just as quietly.
It was not Chris who answered. The voice that spoke was deeper, etched with anger for all its low tone. Standing below them on the deck with his legs spread against the rise and fall of the ship and his hands on his hips, Ramon demanded, “What is the matter now?”
Lorna came slowly to her feet, staring down at him. “I … I didn’t want to be a distraction.”
“And, that is why you decked yourself out like a pitchman at a fair?”
“Here, now,” Chris protested, turning from eyeing the clothing Lorna had on with puzzled recognition, “that’s my best suit.”
“Remind me never to ask your advice on my wardrobe,” Ramon said in a rude aside before he continued, his black gaze on Lorna. “What in bloody hell are you doing here?”
“I had to come. I didn’t think you had listened when I told you about him.” She indicated the red-haired man at her feet.
“You were wrong.”
“I couldn’t know that. You didn’t seem to be paying much notice.”
“I always notice,” he said, his tone harsh.
“Captain, another one!” It was Slick who called, his voice soft, but carrying. He had taken Ramon’s place beside the helmsman, with the pilot at his side.
Ramon nodded as a blossom of fire suddenly appeared in the night and guns exploded. All around them, men scrambled for cover, falling to the deck. Chris and the Englishman caught the shoulders of the unconscious man and pulled him unceremoniously down the steps of the paddle box, his boots bumping on each, until he was flat on the deck.
Lorna drew a deep breath as Ramon turned back to her. Before he could speak, she said, “I suppose I had better go below.”
“Yes.”
Still, he stood as shells screamed past and a sheet parted, the hemp line cracking, whipping around a spar. He made a movement toward her, and she spun abruptly running lightly down the paddle box steps, coming even with him there upon the deck before slipping past.
“Go to my cabin,” he said, his voice grating. “I will join you there shortly.”
There were miles of open water and the federal blockading fleet between him and the leisure of a private tête-à-tête. Still, not for a moment did Lorna doubt that he would do exactly as he said. He would come, and there would be, once more, a reckoning.
19
The federal gunners could not find the range of the fast-moving blockade runner this time. Their firepower whined around the ship in a brilliant pyrotechnic display, heating the air and plowing the waves, but the Lorelei raced on unscathed. Within minutes the booming of the cannons from Fort Fisher was heard, and the federal ships fell back out of range. The surging wash of them was left behind as they crossed the bar into Cape Fear and steamed into calm water. A short time later, they dropped anchor opposite Smithville, and all was quiet.
Lorna expected Ramon to appear at any moment. He did not. There was a great deal of activity overhead. The sound of new arrivals, possibly the health inspectors for the quarantine. The light of dawn seeped into the cabin. An hour passed. Then, just as the sun began to rise, the pipes to the engine room squealed and, with a rumble and hiss of steam, they got under way once more.
As the light increased, Lorna looked around her. There was not a great deal more room in Ramon’s quarters than there had been in the ladies’ cabin. It was stacked with boxes that were wedged in place by barrels. The blue stenciling on the sides was blurred, though she made it out finally. The boxes were filled with medical supplies, with morphine, quinine, calomel, carbolic acid, and with surgical instruments. There were also bolts of white linen to be torn into strips and rolled for bandaging.
She stood frowning, her hand resting on a bolt, her fingers smoothing the sewn cover that kept the linen from being soiled. It was a responsible cargo, one sorely needed, and yet the sight of it sitting there in Ramon’s cabin troubled her.
At the click of the door latch, she looked up. Ramon stood in the doorway. He paused a moment, watching her, then stepped inside and closed the door behind him. His voice hard, he said, “It isn’t bonnets.”
“No,” she answered before she could stop herself, “something even more profitable.”
“I won’t deny it.”
“That would be a little ridiculous, wouldn’t it?”
“If it irritates you so, I don’t know why you insisted on sneaking on board to see it.”
His scorn was like a lash. “I didn’t come for that, as you well know. I came because I was afraid of what that man was going to
do, of what Nate Bacon had paid him to do.”
“There was no need.”
“So, I saw,” she snapped, goaded, “though there was nothing to indicate it before.”
“You might have realized that I weigh every word you say, and some you leave unsaid.” There was a hint of warning in his words, but the anger had faded from his eyes, leaving them dark.
She grew uncomfortable under his gaze. Swinging from him, she lifted a hand to her hair that was coiled around her head, shining pale gold in the dim light. Its smoothness had been disturbed by the removal of her cap, and she tucked in a loose strand. She had taken off her jacket also. The soft linen of the shirt she wore draped over the globes of her breasts, outlining them in a way that made her self-conscious. As she looked, she saw that the thin weave allowed the dark rose of her nipples to show through the cloth. A quick glance at Ramon informed her that he had noticed. His gaze moved downward to the curve of her hips and the tender line of her thighs in the close-fitting trousers. She hardly knew whether to face him or turn her back, and the dilemma brought a flush of annoyance to her cheek bones.
To distract him, she said stiffly, “If my presence is an inconvenience, I apologize.”
“Ungracious, chérie. The truth is, you think you should be congratulated.”
“Not at all.” It was difficult to keep from snapping at him as she heard the rise of amused indulgence in his voice.
“Shown my most fervent gratitude then. Shall I do that, chérie?”
He moved toward her with controlled grace. In sudden distrust, she took a backward step. “It won’t be necessary.”
“Oh, but I insist,” he murmured. “It’s either that or beat you for risking so much for so little reason.”
He stretched out his hands to catch her arms. She braced against his chest with her palms. “It seemed important enough to me.”
“Why?” he asked, his voice intent. “What difference would it make to you what becomes of the Lorelei?”
His touch sent prickles of pleasure racing along her veins. She stared up at him, swallowing on the sudden dryness in her throat, tracing her lips with the tip of her tongue.
“Why?” he insisted, his gaze on her moist mouth.
“For … for you. I owe you so much.”
“You owe me nothing, you maddening witch, and well you know it. Tell me why you came, or I swear I won’t be responsible for what happens.”
The bunk was behind her; she could feel its edge against the backs of her knees. “I … I was afraid.”
“Of what? Did Nate—?”
“No, nothing like that. I was afraid that you — and the others — would be killed, captured.”
He paid no attention to her cowardly dragging of his crew into the matter. “Why should it matter?”
As he towered over her, his hands gripping her arms, she was aware of the strength he held in leash, of the smell of the sea that clung to him and his own distinctive male scent. That assault on her senses, as well as his physical coercion, snapped the last of her tenuous control.
“Oh, all right!” she cried, flinging up her arms, trying to break his grasp. “I came because I love you, because I wanted to share whatever happened to you.”
He held her easily, staring at her an instant with light flooding into the darkness of his eyes. He drew her into his arms, folding her against him with aching tightness. “Lorna,” he whispered, “Dieu, but how I have longed to hear you say it.”
He made love to her then, slowly and exquisitely, and if she had ever doubted her welcome, there was, when he was done, no possible reason to doubt it longer. It was only later, when she lay drowsy and content, naked in the bunk where he had left her while he tended to the business of docking in Wilmington, that she realized that he had not spoken of his own feelings for her. She had committed herself and she did not regret it. Still, it would have been a thing of wonder if she could have known herself loved in return, instead of being merely the object of his passionate obsession.
The days in port were hectic as Ramon worked like a demon to force the unloading of his cargo and the loading of hogsheads of tobacco and over seven hundred bales of cotton in time to take advantage of the last days of the new moon. He found time, however, to replenish Lorna’s wardrobe once more, dispatching the new underclothing, a gown of gray-blue crìepe de chine figured in pink, and a bonnet and shawl to the ship while he was still in town. She half expected to find that he had left out the pantaloons, but, no, he had been most thorough. Discovering this, she did not know whether to be glad or sorry.
The problem of the disposition of the fox-faced man had been easily solved. He had regained consciousness by the time they reached port, had risen from his bed in sick bay, where he had been taken, and vanished down the gangplank. No effort was made to find him. They knew who had paid him for his failed task, and why, but under the circumstances it would be nearly impossible to prove the charge, even if Nate Bacon could be brought up before a magistrate. They had to be satisfied with having foiled his design. Sometimes, however, Lorna caught the flicker of an expression so forbidding on Ramon’s features as he spoke of Nate that she was afraid.
By accident or design, she was not certain which, they saw little of the other blockade runners. Peter had gone to Charleston on his run, or so Chris told her, and the others did not intrude. Ramon seemed satisfied to remain in the cabin during the evening, glancing up from the accounts he pored over now and then to smile at her where she lay reading in his bunk.
The medical supplies disappeared from the cabin on the second day. Late that afternoon, Lorna entered to find Ramon on one knee before his trunk, fitting bags of gold from a stack at his feet into it. He hesitated a moment as he saw her in the doorway, then went on with what he was doing. She said nothing, but stepped inside, moving to pick up his jacket from where he had left it on the back of a chair. Smoothing out the collar, she hung it on a peg beside the door where he usually kept it. He spoke behind her. “Another trip, maybe two, and I’ll have enough.”
“Is there such a thing?” Her tone was quiet, weary.
“I’m not greedy,” he said sharply. “I only want to regain what is mine.”
“What if Nate won’t sell?”
“Didn’t you know? He already has. He liquidated his holdings in Louisiana and turned the Confederate paper into gold. Part of it he used for the blockade steamer he’s been fitting out; the rest he intends to bank until the war is over. He thinks he can pick up places like Beau Repose for a few pennies then.”
“He’s right, isn’t he?”
His brows drew together over his eyes. “What are you suggesting?”
“You said the same once, if I remember. I don’t think you intend to go back to Beau Repose now, in the middle of the war. You must mean to wait until it’s over, too, before you try to repossess your old home.”
“Are you saying I’m no better than Nate?” he asked with irritation.
Her gray gaze was clear as she turned to him. “Not exactly, but isn’t the principle the same? You will have money, while the people who own the place now will likely have none. You may be able to buy it back, but what then? If the war drags on for much longer, even if the South wins, it will be at a vast cost, one that can only be borne by the people. If we lose, then Confederate scrip will be no more than pieces of paper. The slaves will be taken from us and set free, regardless of our investment in them, and then the tracts of land that represent wealth for so many will be worthless.”
“Beau Repose will be mine.”
“Yes, but don’t you see?” She flung out her hand in the attempt to make him understand what she saw so plainly. “The men who have beggared themselves for the cause will despise you. What good will it do to regain your heritage, if you can’t live there in honor and with the respect of your neighbors? Nothing will be the same. Win or lose, nothing will ever be the same.”
He placed the last bag of gold in the trunk and let down the lid, then sat back wi
th one arm on his knee. “What am I supposed to do? Buy myself a horse and ride to Richmond to offer my sword to Lee?”
“No! That would be a terrible waste. I never suggested such a thing.”
“Then, the only other choice is to become an exile.”
There was another choice, and they both knew it. It hovered there between them, difficult, dangerous, painfully obvious. Lorna moved with swift steps, going to her knees beside him in a billow of skirts, putting her hand on his arm. “No. I … perhaps I exaggerate. If General Jackson could take Washington, capture Lincoln, we might come to some kind of agreement for peace. The fortunes of the Confederacy would be so little damaged that no one would notice, or mind, the gold you have accumulated.”
A faint smile touched his mouth. His dark eyes caught and held hers. “What if I said I care not a tinker’s damn what people think, or how and when the war ends.”
“It would be true only in part,” she said with a small shake of her head.
He let out a sound between a sigh and a laugh. “How can you be so sure?”
“You did not resign your commission merely for the sake of the fortune to be made running the blockade, I think, but because you would not fight against your own countrymen. That argues some feeling for the South, and the people who live there.”
“You are determined to find my redeeming qualities, aren’t you?”
“Since you try to hide them.”
“You may be disappointed.”
“I doubt that,” she said, the warmth of love making her eyes darkest gray.
“If they were not there,” he said, “for you I might well pretend to them.”
Her smile was tentative, a little strained as she went into his arms. “I’m not certain that isn’t what we all do.”
Love and Adventure Collection - Part 2 Page 40
