by Tess LeSue
Matt nodded. “There will be. We’re looking at a medium-sized party, which is still going to be in the hundreds of people, folks.”
There was a murmur.
“When the parties start heading out in a few weeks, go and watch them leaving. Some are so big they take all day to roll out. It will give you a good idea of what to expect.”
“But how do you manage a group that big?” It was Blue Bonnet again, this time sounding disapproving.
“We have scouts, ma’am. And we expect you to manage your own group. We’ll lead the way, form a small governing council, run a court if discipline is needed, lead hunting expeditions and do all the planning and trail blazing. But this is a hard journey, and we expect you all to be self-sufficient.”
Georgiana took a shaky breath. She didn’t feel at all self-sufficient . . .
She hadn’t realized the scale of his job. She couldn’t quite comprehend the numbers of people he was talking about, let alone picture them all traveling in one big group.
“Now, every Saturday night, Independence holds a dance in the town square. We have a spot under the sycamore, where you signed up with us, where our group settles for the dance. Come meet us there this Saturday and every Saturday until we leave, so you can get introduced to the others in the party. It’s a great chance to get to know people and work out who you’d like to travel alongside.” He gave them a reassuring smile. “We sure hope to see you there this Saturday.”
And that quickly, the meeting concluded. Matt thanked the twins and took his map back, and then he was swamped with people. It seemed there were still more questions to be asked. The twins stayed close, listening attentively.
Georgiana gently nudged Susannah off her lap and stood up. She was feeling quite overwhelmed.
“I’d be happy to take you to buy some things from the list,” Wendell said, creeping in beside her.
That was the last thing Georgiana wanted.
“Perhaps,” she hedged. “Actually, I was wondering if you could find out from Mr. Koerner about the California Trail? Maybe you could familiarize yourselves thoroughly with the route? Then we could meet later and you could talk me through it? I’d love to see a map.”
That might keep him out of her way for a while. She found his presence oppressive, even if he was trying to be courteous.
Wendell leapt at her request like a dog at a bone and disappeared, off to find Kipp.
Once he was gone, Georgiana tried to gather her thoughts. What to do first?
Talk to Matt Slater. That was all she wanted to do.
Well, not all. But she couldn’t entertain those thoughts. Particularly not here, in public. She fanned herself with her napkin. Think about something else.
The trail. How could she check the wagons, provision them, buy animals and do the dozens of other things she needed to do, all while dragging four young children along after her? She needed help. And not help from the likes of Wendell Todd.
Matt said he charged to help get people set up. She didn’t have much money left, but she was willing to pay for that. She trusted him.
She just needed a chance to speak to him. Which might take a while, she realized, as she saw the queue forming in front of him.
13
MATT TOOK THE coward’s way out and left Georgiana to Seb.
“Can you tell her I’ll see her later at the hotel?” he asked his friend.
“You sure? She looks pretty set on speaking to you.” Seb was smirking. He obviously thought Matt was being shy with his new fiancée. Which didn’t surprise him; he’d known Matt long enough to have some experience with his nerves around women. “You are going to have to talk to her eventually, you know,” Seb told him.
Matt scowled. “Tell her I’ll be at the hotel tonight.”
“Whatever you want, boss.”
Matt had agreed to take the Tasker family to order wagons and was glad to slip out with them while Seb was talking to Georgiana. He wasn’t ready to see her again yet. Not alone. Not after the dreams he’d had last night. Dreams about that row of little black buttons down the front of her dress and how he could unbutton them one by one by one. Running into her at the hotel this morning had been excruciating. Her big blue eyes, her ridiculously small corseted waist, those damn little buttons running over the luscious swell of her chest. It all made him break out in a cold sweat.
He was sweating again now, just from being in the same room with her all morning. It had been near impossible to concentrate with her sitting at the closest table, those sky blue eyes fixed on him, watching his every move. A couple of times he’d lost his train of thought and had to pause and try to remember what he was talking about. It helped to have the map. When he lost track, he could just go back to talking about the route.
It was a relief to be out of there, away from her, and back to simple business, he thought as he took the Taskers to Archie’s. They were a nice family, the Taskers. The kind of family he envied. The old man was a widower and was taking his pack to Oregon for a better life. There were four grown children, three with spouses and children of their own, and a fourth, the youngest, Lydia, who looked after her father in the wake of his wife’s death. The lot of them were easy with one another, teasing their father, Herb, about how he might find a new wife in the new land. Matt was jealous of their ease, and of the fact that they still had their father.
He couldn’t imagine having his own father still a part of his life. He wondered what it would be like. It looked pretty nice.
He enjoyed spending the afternoon with them at Archie’s, looking at near-finished examples of wagons and helping them order what they’d need. And they needed a lot, as there were so many of them.
“I can’t do it quickly,” Archie apologized to Matt once the family had ordered their wagons and departed, in a flurry of excited chatter. They were off to buy some of the things from Matt’s list, and they were full of praise for his organizational skills. Matt liked his clients happy before they started on the trail; they needed to feel safe at the start, as they were always anxious about the road ahead. He wanted them to know they could trust him. A little trust early on went a long way toward running a smooth train. He’d learned that lesson the hard way.
“I’m busy night and day already,” Archie complained. “I would have told them I was booked up, except I’d never say no to you.”
“I appreciate it,” Matt said.
Archie shrugged. “You’ve given me a lot of business over the years. And the people you bring always pay up front, like I ask.”
“I bring them to you because you’re always ready on time,” Matt said. “I’ll be back again tomorrow. I might have a couple more for you.”
“I don’t have time,” Archie complained. “I just told you that.”
“We’ll just swing by and see how you feel tomorrow.”
Archie grunted. “Hey,” he said abruptly, jolting as though he had remembered something, “what’s this gossip I hear about you getting married? And to that Smith woman! Is there any truth in it?”
“Maybe a little,” Matt admitted. A precious little.
“You know she went to Noonan for her wagons?”
Matt swore. Noonan. Of all people.
“You might want to get on that,” Archie advised.
“Yeah,” Matt said sourly. Damn it. As if he didn’t have enough to do. He didn’t have time left today. He’d see Noonan tomorrow.
“I was thinking you’d snuck out the back door, honey. You took so long to come out,” a voice purred as Matt stepped into the street.
He was starting to hate this town. Just when he thought things had calmed down, something crawled out from under a rock to bite him in the ass.
This time the something was Seline, who was dolled up in her Sunday best. Her gaudy, shiny, busty Sunday best. The bright pink satin caught the afternoon sunlight and c
lashed horribly with her hair. She’d smacked on some extra rouge too, he noticed.
“What do you want?” he sighed.
“Now, honey, that ain’t no way to treat a lady.” She fluttered her eyelashes at him.
Despite himself, Matt had always liked Seline. She had spirit. And there was a certain detachment in the way she approached him with her random acts of seduction that put him weirdly at ease. He’d always had the sense that she didn’t give a damn about him. Any attraction was a performance. And that felt a hell of a lot safer than the temptation offered by Georgiana Bee Blunt, whose inky eyes last night had glistened with pure, instinctive, unperformed desire.
“Drop it,” he told the whore. “I’m busy.”
She grinned and dropped the flirtation. Immediately her body language changed, relaxed. “Me and some of the girls want to go to California,” she said.
“I don’t go to California.”
“I know, but that stuck-up Joe Sampson won’t take us.” She rolled her eyes. “He said he doesn’t trade in whores.”
“Neither do I.” Matt started walking back to the square. Seline followed along.
“There’s a hell of a trade to be done on those goldfields,” she said, her shiny pink skirt swinging as she skipped alongside him. “Do you have any idea how many men are out there, and how few women?”
Matt grunted. He had no intention of taking whores on his train.
“There’s a fortune to be made! And I’m tired of spreading my legs for the profit of other people. I want to start my own place. For the profit of me. I have the girls. I have the money to set us up. Now I just need someone to take us.” She gave him a look. “Someone I trust, who ain’t going to abuse us.”
“I don’t go to California,” he repeated. He stopped, frustrated. He could hardly walk into the town square trailing a whore.
“I know. But you could talk to your man Joe, surely? Have you seen the group he’s got together? It’s almost all men. All of them headed for the goldfields! I could make a fortune on the trail alone! Wait!” she said, sounding frustrated when he tried to walk away. “Listen! Just listen, that’s all I ask. You know what a party of men is like—that many men: dozens and dozens of single men out on the trail, without the comfort of women. You know we could be doing you a great service, keeping them all placid.”
Matt grunted.
“Just talk to him, honey,” Seline pleaded. “That’s all I ask.”
Matt sighed. “It won’t do any good, Seline. Neither of us wants whores in our party.”
She scowled at that. “Don’t you go getting up on your high horse, Matthew Slater. Just because you never visit a whore, don’t mean you got a right to judge me and the girls. You think we chose this life? You think any girl in her right mind dreams of becoming a whore? But I’ll be damned if I’ll be looked down on. If you’re going to look down on anyone, you can look down on the dirty bastards who pay us. The ones with wives.” She caught herself and took a deep breath. He watched her expression become composed again. “Those men in Sampson’s party are mostly single. None of them would begrudge him taking us along. We ain’t likely to upset anyone’s sense of common decency.”
“He travels along with my party, Seline. I got families. Hell, I even got a priest.”
“Well, he shouldn’t be complaining. Mary Magdalene was a whore, wasn’t she? And she’s a goddamn saint!”
Matt sighed. “I’ll ask him. But that’s all I’ll do. And I can pretty much guarantee that he’s going to say no.”
She didn’t look happy about it, but she didn’t look surprised either. “Just take a look at his books when you talk to him,” she said quietly, “and see how many are men on their ownsome, and think about what I said. You might run into trouble with that many single men, that many rough-and-ready gold diggers on the trail along with your decent folks. And your priest.” She tossed her head and pranced off, the pink bell of her skirt swinging.
Matt did think about it. He’d had a particularly hairy trip one year when he’d made the mistake of not balancing out his party with enough families. She was right. Too many single men could make for a hard trip. But he wasn’t about to talk to Joe today. He’d wait and hope Seline found another party to join first.
He headed for the square, feeling like his life had become just one damn mess after another.
* * *
• • •
GEORGIANA HADN’T MANAGED to speak to Matt since Mrs. Tilly’s. It wasn’t for lack of trying. But the man was slipperier than Wilby wet from the bathtub. Straight after the meeting, he’d left with Blue Bonnet, of all people. Georgiana had gone back to meet him at the hotel, just as Mr. Doyle told her to. He’d said Matt would see her later at the hotel. But he hadn’t come. She’d waited all afternoon. By that point she’d been a little irritated. But even though the children begged her to go back to the cookhouse for dinner, she stayed at the hotel instead, just in case. He still hadn’t come. She’d stabbed at the dry mutton and lumpy gravy, blaming him for their unappetizing dinner. She certainly wouldn’t be eating Mrs. Bulfinch’s cooking if it weren’t for him. Breakfast was bad enough, but the things that woman could do with a roast beggared belief.
By the time she hauled the children up to bed, she was in a filthy temper. She’d sat around all day. Well, most of the day. The afternoon and evening, anyway. Because he’d asked her to. Because of him she hadn’t gone back to Mr. Noonan’s to sort out her wagons; she hadn’t bought a cow or a kettle or any of the other things on his wretched list; she hadn’t done anything except sit on Mrs. Bulfinch’s porch, in Mrs. Bulfinch’s parlor, and in Mrs. Bulfinch’s dining room. Not only was it stuffy and boring, but she’d had to deal with all the men she’d rejected. She’d started out polite and ended up quite snappish. She blamed Matt Slater for that too.
She was short with the children as she helped them wash and dress for bed. She had to count to ten at least a dozen times to stop herself from shouting at them. When Susannah burst into tears because Georgiana wouldn’t sing her a lullaby, she was quite at her wit’s end.
“I can’t,” she tried to explain to her daughter. “You know I always fall asleep when I sing to you, and I have to stay up so I can talk to Mr. Slater.”
“He don’t seem to want to talk to you,” Phin said, his voice muffled by his pillow.
“Doesn’t. He doesn’t seem to,” she corrected him, trying not to feel the bite of his words. “Don’t is vulgar.”
“People around here say don’t,” he defended himself.
“Well, we’re not from here, are we? And we’re certainly not staying here.”
Susannah had no patience with their conversation and kept crying for a lullaby. In the end, Georgiana bribed the twins to sing to her in exchange for buying them the marbles they’d coveted at the store.
“You have to sing at least five songs, or no marbles,” she warned. “And no short songs! If it’s ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,’ you have to sing it through at least three times.”
They groaned but wanted the marbles enough to do as she asked.
Georgiana left them to it and went into her own room, which opened onto the hallway. She pulled the desk chair up to the door and opened it a crack. From where she sat, she had a clear view of Matt Slater’s door. There was no way he was getting past her.
Or so she thought.
She must have dozed off sometime after the second hour. She woke suddenly to a very still house. She could hear the ticking of the grandfather clock downstairs. It must be very late. Her door was closed, she realized. Had she knocked it when she’d fallen asleep? Or had he come along and seen her and closed the door on her?
Georgiana felt even more irritable than before. She was stiff from her odd position in the chair. She got up and checked on the children. They were fast asleep. She turned down their lamp and headed crankily back to her
own bed. The clock said it was after midnight. Midnight!
That wretch had told her to wait at the hotel and he’d speak to her there! And then he’d left her to sit and wait until midnight!
But he hadn’t said exactly when he’d be at the hotel, she realized. He’d only said later; he might have meant tomorrow. She scowled. No. He must have known how she’d interpret it. It was just a cheap ploy to keep her out of his way. He’d been very short with her this morning, and then he’d sent Mr. Doyle over to shoo her away, instead of speaking to her himself. Was he mad at her?
Was it because of the kiss?
He had no cause to be cold with her. The whole pretend engagement thing was his fault in the first place. As was the kiss.
He had no right punishing her for his faults!
Georgiana cocked her head. She thought she’d heard the faint sound of male voices. Was he awake? She opened her door. Yes, there were definitely voices talking behind his closed door.
He thought he could avoid her, did he?
Well, we’d see about that.
She marched over and knocked. The murmur of voices fell silent. She knocked again.
Silence.
Now she was really irked.
She knocked louder, not caring if she woke the whole hotel. “Mr. Slater?” she called. “It’s me.”
She heard whispers. Not now . . . Get rid of her . . .
That made her mad enough to want to kick the door down. Get rid of her? Ha. She’d like to see him try. “I know you’re in there,” she said, slapping the flat of her hand against the door.
She heard soft footsteps and a clicking sound, like a door closing. She slapped again. Harder.
The door opened as her hand came down a third time, and she went stumbling over the threshold. Right into a grumpy-looking man. A starkly handsome, angular, completely grumpy-looking man.
He was terrifying.
It didn’t help that the lamplight was low, casting his face into shadow. He loomed over her, still as glass.
