Forget-Me-Not Bride

by Margaret Pemberton

  He was too late. Her eyes were no longer anxious and doubtful and they were no longer on him. No longer even listening to him, her face radiant, she was looking towards the hotel’s entrance. Ringan had no need to turn around to know who it was who had just entered the lobby.

  ‘Howdy, Jess,’ Lucky Jack said breezily to the White Pass’s manager. ‘Gossip tells me Dawson’s been emptying out whilst I’ve been away.’

  ‘Sure has,’ Jess Winthrop said, striding across the lobby to shake vigorous hold of Jack’s hand. ‘Dawson’s beginning to die. Everyone who hasn’t already made a strike is heading out to Nome. I’m tempted to head out in that direction myself. Reports are they’re finding nuggets as big as boulders.’

  Jack grinned. It was a story he had heard before. Many times.

  ‘We’re dining at seven,’ he said as he reached Lilli’s side. ‘I’ve someone I want you to meet. Her name is Miss Kitty Dufresne and what she can’t tell you about Dawson isn’t worth knowing.’ He glanced across at Ringan. ‘Perhaps you’d like to dine with us as well, Mr Cameron?’ he asked, wondering just what the hell Cameron had been up to with Lilli. The Scotsman looked like a man who’d lost a hundred dollar bill and found a nickel.

  Ringan shook his head. ‘No, thanks,’ he said shortly. ‘Bye, Miss Stullen.’ With a brief, polite nod of his head he took his leave of them, walking swiftly towards the foot of the wide staircase.

  ‘I’d love to meet Miss Dufresne,’ Lilli said, her face upturned to his, her eyes glowing, Ringan Cameron immediately forgotten.

  ‘Kitty thinks it would be bad for your reputation if you were seen dining with her, but Jess has a private dining-room we can use,’ Jack’s eyes were still on Ringan as Ringan took the wooden treads two at a time in easy, athletic strides. ‘And she’s rather looking forward to meeting Leo and Lottie. She’s never had much contact with children, which is rather a pity. I have a feeling she’d be pretty good with them.’

  More people were now entering the lobby, among them his two card-playing buddies. He touched her elbow lightly. ‘I have to go now. I’ve things to see to. I’ll see you at seven.’

  As he joined his cronies, disappearing with them into a room marked PRIVATE that led off the far side of the lobby, Lilli cupped the elbow he had touched. It was going to be all right. He had touched her in a way which was openly proprietal. It was going to be all right.

  If she had hoped Lucky Jack would introduce her to Kitty Dufresne as his fiancée she was disappointed.

  ‘As the two of you are going to be seeing a lot of each other when we get to Dawson I thought tonight would be a chance for you both to get acquainted,’ he said when all introductions had been made and they had all seated themselves around a large, round, candle-lit table.

  ‘We won’t be seeing a lot of each other publicly,’ Kitty said in a voice so fascinatingly throaty Leo stared at her goggle-eyed. ‘I think Jack has already explained to you why, Miss Stullen. But under the circumstances, and as I’m Jack’s business partner, it won’t do any harm for the two of us to be on friendly terms.’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Lilli wasn’t quite sure how to respond to such a startlingly frank statement. Didn’t Kitty Dufresne mind that she wasn’t socially acceptable? She thought of Marietta. Marietta certainly wouldn’t mind. ‘I want us to be on friendly terms,’ she said warmly, aware that Kitty and Marietta had much in common,

  ‘Then let’s have some wine and drink to friendship,’ Kitty said, touching the rim of her still empty wine-glass.

  Lucky Jack obligingly began to pour a ruby-red wine into the wine-glasses, his gold earring gleaming in the candle-light, his fair hair glistening, pale as barley in September.

  With difficulty Lilli wrenched her eyes aware from the blazing bravura of his handsomeness. There was Leo and Lottie to think of; proprieties to be observed.

  ‘Can I have some wine?’ Leo asked, sensing the evening was like no other evening he had ever experienced and that anything was possible.

  ‘No, of course not,’ Lilli chided, praying that Leo wasn’t going to behave badly.

  ‘Perhaps Leo could just have a taste of wine,’ Kitty suggested, ‘in water, of course.’

  ‘It’s French,’ Lucky Jack said, his eyes meeting Lilli’s over the candle-flames. ‘It’s good quality. A dash of it in water won’t do any harm.’

  ‘Well … just a little dash,’ Lilli concurred, wondering if she, too, should mix it with water. She had never drunk wine before and she didn’t want it to go to her head.

  Leo gave a sigh of pure happiness. He had known the instant he had set eyes on Lucky Jack’s friend that she was a magic lady. And not only a magic lady, but a royal magic lady, for surely only queens wore lace and satin and diamonds.

  Lilli, too, was very well aware of Kitty Dufresne’s almost royal raiment. Her dress was of midnight-blue and daringly décolleté. There were diamonds at her ears and in her hair. Lilli had never seen a tiara before and only deeply bred good manners prevented her from staring in wonder at the feast of wealth winking and twinkling in Kitty Dufresne’s Titian-red hair.

  ‘To your new life in Dawson,’ Jack said, raising his glass towards Lilli and Leo and Lottie. ‘May you soon feel at home there.’

  ‘And may you soon come to love it just as much as I do,’ Kitty added, smiling at them with such genuine warmth she won Lottie’s heart as well as Leo’s.

  That Kitty really did love Dawson became blatantly apparent when Lucky Jack began to recount the remarks Jess Winthrop had made to him earlier on, in the lobby.

  ‘He says Dawson is beginning to die. That everyone is lighting out for Nome.’

  Kitty laid down her fork and looked towards him. ‘I’m not going to light for Nome,’ she said, an odd undertone to her voice.

  Jack poured more wine into his glass. ‘It’s not only Winthrop’s opinion. Everyone’s saying the same thing. There’s already a tent city on the beach. Men are making fortunes. Buildings are going up. Saloons are opening. It’s too late, now, for us to get in early as we did in Dawson, but …’

  Kitty was very still. The big-hearted smile that had encompassed Lilli and Leo and Lottie like a ray of hot summer sunshine, was now gone. ‘I’m not interested, Jack. I’ve had it with opening new saloons in new towns. The money we’ve made and invested this last two years will see me through life. And the life I want is in Dawson. I’ve become part of the place, for God’s sake. I’ve never called anywhere home before, but Dawson has become home. And whether it dies or not, I’m not leaving it.’

  Lottie’s eyes met Lilli’s uncomfortably. The conversation had suddenly become embarrassingly serious.

  Lucky Jack knew it had become serious too and he didn’t like it. ‘We’ll talk about Nome later,’ he said, angry with himself for having broached just a ticklish subject when the Stullens were present. ‘How about livening things up and treating young Lottie to an ice-worm cocktail?’

  As he leaned back in his chair, pressing the bell on the wall to summon a waiter, Lottie said incredulously. ‘A what? A worm cocktail? I don’t believe it!’

  ‘White worms are a prime delicacy in Whitehorse,’ Jack said, keeping his face straight with difficulty. ‘In fact they’re so much of a delicacy I think Leo and Lilli should have an ice-worm cocktail as well.’

  When the drinks were set on the table, white worms wriggling at the bottom of each glass, there were shrieks of horror, shrieks which quickly turned to shrieks of laughter when Kitty finally took pity on them and revealed that the ‘worms’were small pieces of spaghetti.

  As the evening progressed Lilli felt herself becoming pleasantly drowsy. The wine was far nicer than she had anticipated it would be and she understood for the first time why people enjoyed drinking wine so much. Leo, for all he had only had a small amount in water, was asleep at the table, his head resting on his folded hands.

  ‘I think it’s time we broke the party up,’ Lucky Jack said at last, well aware that until they did so, he couldn’t
resume his discussion with Kitty. ‘Don’t try and wake Leo, Lilli. I’ll carry him.’

  Walking with Lottie along the dimly-lit corridor towards her bedroom, Lucky Jack by their side, Leo in his arms, Lilli felt truly blessed. Even though she and Jack were not yet married it was as if they were already a family.

  When they got to the door of their room Lucky Jack opened it and carried Leo over to the nearest bed. ‘I’d let him sleep in his clothes tonight,’ he said, amusement in his voice. ‘It won’t harm for one night.’

  ‘I think I might sleep in mine,’ Lottie said, sinking down on the truckle bed next to Leo’s. ‘I can’t ever remember being so tired and I can’t ever remember a nicer evening. Thank you, Lucky Jack. I’ll never forget it.’ She began to giggle. ‘And I’ll never forget the ice-worm cocktails!’

  Now that Lucky Jack was free of his burden his hand reached out for Lilli’s. ‘I think we’d better say our goodnights in the corridor,’ he said in a low voice.

  Her fingers tightened on his, a pulse beginning to beat light and fast in her throat.

  Once the bedroom door was closed on Leo and Lottie he took her in his arms. This time there was no Ringan Cameron standing intrusively near to them. With a little gasp of pleasure she raised her face to his, her hands sliding up and around his neck.

  ‘You’re a very beautiful young woman Lilli,’ he said softly, his mouth skimming the silky smoothness of her hair. ‘So beautiful that I think you could change my life.’

  A smile touched Lilli’s mouth as he bent his head lower, his lips brushing her temple. She was going to change his life; just as he was going to change hers.

  With expert ease he pressed her back against the walnut panelling of the wall and, holding her close against him with a strong, firm hand, slid his other hand over the primness of her high-necked shirtwaist, cupping the exquisite weight of her breast in his palm.

  Lilli gasped, brought almost to insensibility by the combination of wine and the pleasure of his touch.

  ‘You’re a very special lady, Lilli,’ he said sincerely, his mouth at the corner of hers, ‘Very, very special.’

  She could feel the hardness of his body through the folds of her skirt and as his mouth closed at last on hers, answering desire shot through her, shocking in its intensity.

  It was an ecstasy quickly and rudely shattered.

  ‘It’s so dark I can hardly see where I’m going,’ Edie’s voice said nervously from the direction of the top of the stairs. ‘You go first, Marietta. You don’t get scared like I do.’

  With a softly, but sincerely muttered blasphemy, Lucky Jack released his hold of Lilli, stepping a discreet foot or so away from her.

  Lilli sagged against the wall, her heart pounding as if it was going to burst.

  ‘Sorry folks,’ Marietta said apologetically, well aware of the kind of scene she and Edie had just interrrupted. ‘We’re just passing through.’

  Edie paused. ‘Are you all right, Lilli,’ she asked solicitously. ‘You look a little out of breath. Would you like a cup of cocoa? Marietta’s just going to make one for me and …’

  ‘Not tonight, Edie,’ Marietta said firmly, tugging on Edie’s hand, pulling her after her down the darkened corridor.

  Jack suppressed the temptation to take Lilli in his arms again. He needed to continue his discussion with Kitty and make her see the pointlessnss of staying in Dawson, if Dawson was dying. ‘We never have much luck with our romantic trysts, do we?‘ he said, sounding suitably rueful. ‘Perhaps we’ll be luckier tomorrow, at the rapids. Goodnight, Lilli. Sweet dreams.’

  ‘Goodnight.’

  Dizzily she wondered why, with the corridor again deserted, he couldn’t again take her in his arms. When she finally summoned the strength to move away from the support of the wall, she knew that whatever his reason, she was grateful for it. She couldn’t, absolutely couldn’t, remain upright for any longer than it was going to take her to reach her bed.

  ‘Did you sleep in your clothes too?’ Lottie asked her eight hours later as morning sunlight flooded into their bedroom.

  Lilli opened her eyes cautiously, wondering if her headache would eventually disappear or if she was going to have it for life. ‘I must have done. I was so tired. It was such a long day. Skagway. The train journey …’

  ‘You drank too much wine,’ Lottie said baldly. ‘I don’t know what people do when they’ve drunk too much wine, but whatever it is you’d better do it. We’re going to the rapids with Lucky Jack this morning.’

  With a super-human effort Lilli forced herself up off the bed. There was a pitcher of cold water on the washstand and with an unsteady hand she poured it into its matching porcelain bowl.

  ‘Edie and Marietta are going to the rapids with Susan and the Reverend Mr Jenkinson,’ Lottie said informatively. ‘Kate is going to see them with Lord Lister.’

  ‘And Lettie is coming with us,’ Lilli finished for her. ‘It’s alright, Lottie. I hadn’t forgotten.’

  ‘Then you’d better get a move on,’ Lottie said mercilessly. ‘We have to be there and back by lunch-time, because that’s when the steamer leaves for Dawson.’

  ‘Another boat?’ Leo asked, sitting up in bed and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. ‘Are we going on another boat?’

  ‘Yes, but it won’t be as big as the Senator.’ Lilli divested herself of her crumpled shirtwaist and skirt. ‘It will be a riverboat.’

  ‘And will it take us down the Yukon to Dawson?’ Leo asked, hoping Lilli wasn’t going to expect him to take off the clothes he had slept in. The best thing about sleeping in your clothes was the time it saved getting ready for breakfast next morning.

  Lilli took her toffee coloured blouse and cream serge skirt from out of her travel-bag and shook them vigorously to rid them of creases. ‘All the way. There’s water in the bowl for you to have a wash, Leo. And take those clothes off and put on fresh ones. You can’t possibly go down to breakfast like that. You look worse than a shovel-stiff!’

  ‘Bye!’ Kate called from the buggy she was sharing with Lord Lister. ‘See you at the rapids!’

  ‘Bye!’ Marietta and Edie chorused as the carriage they were sharing with Susan and the Reverend Mr Jenkinson bowled away in the buggy’s wake.

  Lilli, Lottie, Leo and Lettie remained standing in the dust at the foot of the hotel’s steps. There was much to-ing and fro-ing going on all around them. Buggy’s arriving. Buggy’s leaving. But there was no sign of Lucky Jack.

  Fifteen minutes later there was still no sign of him.

  ‘He’s forgotten,’ Lottie said flatly, her sailor-hat rammed straight on top of her head.

  ‘He’s delayed,’ Lilli corrected, fiercely hoping she would be proved to be right.

  Half an hour later Lettie echoed Lottie. ‘He’s forgotten,’ she said, no surprise in her voice. ‘Shall I take Leo and Lottie for a walk somewhere? We won’t be able to get as far as the rapids but we could at least have a short walk by the river.’

  ‘But I wanted to see the rapids!’ Leo protested, his bottom lip beginning to tremble.

  ‘Don’t be a baby, Leo.’ Fighting her own disappointment Lottie took hold of his hand. ‘We’re going to have a nice walk with Lettie. Are you coming as well, Lilli?’

  Lilli shook her head. ‘No. I want to be here when Lucky Jack arrives to explain what has delayed him. He’s bound to be upset.’

  Lettie gave her a long, penetrating look. So penetrating that Lilli turned her head away. ‘I expect it was business,’ she said, her voice full of a confidence she didn’t truly feel. ‘He had a business meeting with someone yesterday afternoon when we arrived.’

  No-one said anything. Leo wiped his nose on the back of his hand. Lilli didn’t have the heart to reprimand him. She knew how much he had been looking forward to seeing the rapids and, if only Lucky Jack had been able to get word to them that he was going to be unable to take them, he could have gone with Kate and Lord Lister, or with the Reverend Mr Jenkinson’s party. Desultorily he
set off with Lottie and Lettie.

  Lilli remained standing at the foot of the hotel steps. Lucky Jack would come eventually. And when he came he would apologise and explain.

  It was Kitty Dufresne who walked briskly down the hotel steps towards her and who apologised and explained. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Stullen. If you’re waiting for Jack you’re wasting your time. He’s in no state to go to the rapids.

  Lilli stared at her. ‘What on earth do you mean? Is he ill?’

  ‘No, drunk,’ Kitty said succinctly. She was wearing the emerald-green, astrakhan-trimmed travelling-costume she had worn the previous day. Near to, and in the brutal light of day, the light web of lines around her eyes were clearly visible beneath her face powder.

  ‘Drunk? But he wasn’t drunk when he said goodnight to me last night! And it’s only ten o’clock in the morning!’

  Despite her own anger at Jack’s behaviour a slight smile tugged at the corner of Kitty’s carmine-red mouth. ‘You don’t know an awful lot about men, Miss Stullen. But, to be fair to Jack, he didn’t start on a bender this morning. He started last night.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t understand. Could you explain a little more?’ Lilli could feel her headache returning. In the distance, in the direction of the river, a tall, broad-shouldered, red-haired figure had stopped to talk to Lettie and Leo and Lottie. Lilli’s nails dug deep into her palms. Ringan Cameron would be asking why Leo and Lottie weren’t at the rapids. Someone, Leo or Lottie, or even Lettie, would be bound to tell him it was because Lucky Jack had let them down.