Love Inspired Historical November 2014

by Danica Favorite

  “I don’t need help,” Allie said. “From anyone.”

  She truly meant those words, and Maddie must have believed them, for she did not offer to so much as change Gillian for bed that night as they anchored at last in the harbor at Lota. Clay, too, took dinner in the upper salon, as if giving Allie time to think.

  But thinking, she realized, only took her deeper into trouble. Clay had named Gillian Captain Howard. Allie rather thought the title should belong to her. She was the captain of her life. She’d set her course. So, she’d found a few questions along the way—how to support herself and Gillian in Seattle, what to do about Clay. She was the one who must find the answers.

  First, however, she had to escape the harbor of Lota.

  She knew from conversations among the officers of the Continental that the ship was to stay a week in the port. She was looking forward to seeing the little coastal town with its stucco buildings and wood-trimmed market. What she hadn’t expected was for the town to come to her.

  She heard the hum of voices from the lower salon before she even finished dressing in her gray gown with the black fringe. When she opened the door, Gillian beside her, it was to find that the Continental had been besieged.

  “Have you ever seen so many handsome gentlemen in one place?” Maddie marveled as she and the rest of the women attempted to converse with six of the many Chilean officers who had rowed out to visit.

  The gentlemen had shiny black hair and slender mustaches framing shy smiles, with red braid at their shoulders and across the chests of their dark dress uniforms. Their lilting praise drifted about the room like butterflies, dancing from woman to woman.

  All around Allie, ladies perched with fluttering lashes, fluttering fingers, making the most of the opportunity to flirt to their hearts’ content, as Mr. Mercer had apparently gone ashore before the Chileans had arrived. Matt Kelley had grabbed a biscuit and had gone into hiding.

  Catherine remained aloof. “Poppycock,” she told Allie before seeking safety with the Continental’s officers. “It’s the same in the upper salon and on deck, but nothing will come of it. You mark my words.”

  Allie quite agreed, but she was too busy fending off the officer who had attached himself to her as she and Gillian sat beside the long table.

  “And so you come from Boston, Mrs. Howard?” he asked, capturing her hand from where he sat beside her.

  Allie pulled away. “Yes, and I have every intention of continuing to Seattle.”

  “No, no, such a fair flower cannot be left to whither in the northern cold,” he protested, seizing her other hand. “You must stay here in Chile, teach our young women how to be great ladies.” His grip was as sure as his smile.

  “I don’t like being chilly,” Gillian said from her lap. She took Allie’s arm and tugged her mother’s hand back from the officer, whose eyes widened in surprise. “I don’t like you, either.”

  Very likely such behavior stemmed from a concern for Allie, just as Catherine had said back in Rio. Allie knew she should scold her daughter, but she rather agreed with Gillian this time. The Chilean gentlemen were far too bold. All around the lower salon, they were kneeling, professing undying devotion, when they’d known the ladies of the Continental at most three hours!

  Just then, Clay ducked into the lower salon. He had gone into town with Mr. Conant and Mr. Reynolds that morning, Maddie had reported earlier. Allie hadn’t talked to him since the Spanish had let the ship go yesterday. She suspected she had overreacted, but his comment had made her feel as if she was being forced into a corner.

  Now the three men stopped inside the doorway from the stairs, staring about. She saw the surprise on Clay’s face quickly melt into disgust. She knew exactly how he felt.

  Reynolds immediately excused himself. Conant took out his notebook and began making notes. Clay’s gaze swept the room until it lit on Allie. She could almost see his struggle in the way he shifted on his feet. He wanted to help her, but she’d forbidden it.

  Allie set Gillian on the floor and rose, forcing her beau to hop to his feet, as well.

  “Mr. Howard!” she called, motioning to Clay.

  His brow cleared, and he strode to her side. “Mrs. Howard, Captain Howard,” he said with a nod. “Did you need me?”

  He was going to make her say it. “Yes, Mr. Howard,” she admitted. “It’s a lovely day. Would you care to join us in a promenade on deck?”

  “Delighted,” he assured her with a grin as he offered her his arm.

  She accepted it with one hand, taking her daughter’s hand with the other, and hoped she didn’t look as desperate as she felt.

  Her would-be suitor expressed every intention of escorting her, as well.

  From a good head above his, Clay gazed down at him. “The lady has little need for one man’s help, let alone two. Look for better hunting, sir.”

  The officer frowned at him in obvious confusion, but Clay swept Gillian up on his hip and led Allie away before her swain could recover enough to protest further.

  “Thank you,” she said as they climbed the stairs to the deck. “Another minute and I would have had to be rude.”

  “Then I’m glad to have saved you from that fate,” Clay said with a wink to her daughter.

  At least he was willing to forget their argument. Right now, she was more concerned about what was happening on the ship.

  “I simply don’t understand this,” she said as she, Clay and Gillian reached the main deck. Here, too, noble Chilean gentlemen walked about, laughing and chatting with the ladies. “Is the town so lacking in female companionship they must flock to ours?”

  “Not from what I could see,” Clay replied, shifting Gillian up on his shoulders so she could gaze out over the water. “Maybe it’s just the novelty of Yankee women.”

  Allie shook her head. “Novelty is seldom enough to interest a gentleman to this degree.”

  One of the more vinegar-tongued women sashayed past with a mustachioed beau on each arm. She tossed her head at Allie as if to crow.

  “You were saying?” Clay asked with a grin.

  Allie threw up her hands. “If this is any indication of what Seattle will be like, perhaps we should stay in San Francisco.”

  “Perhaps you should.” His voice had sobered, and Allie glanced his way. He had turned his gaze out across the waters of the harbor, over the other ships that rocked at anchor, but somehow she didn’t think he saw any of them. “It’s no Boston, but it’s far more civilized than Seattle. The Howards have trading partners there. You’d have ready access to society.”

  There he went again! Why couldn’t he understand her antipathy to society?

  “I know you want the best of us, Clay,” she managed to say. “I’m convinced that is Seattle. And I truly don’t want to live anywhere the Howards have influence.”

  He turned to look at her, Gillian frowning down from his shoulders. “Even mine?”

  Allie was spared having to answer him by the sound of Catherine calling her name. Turning, she saw her friend hurrying toward them, one hand on the flat-topped hat perched on her pale hair.

  “You must help me,” she declared as she came abreast of them. “It’s simply monstrous.”

  What now? Allie sent up a prayer for wisdom. “What’s happened?”

  Catherine took a deep breath, dropped her hand and pressed it against the lavender of her gown over her diaphragm, as if to catch her breath. “It was in the newspaper. The American consulate gave one to Mr. Mercer. A respected scholar and politician currently residing in America wrote home to tell his people we were coming and claimed we were all schoolmarms. He encouraged every man in Chile to try to keep us here, by hook or by crook. That’s how badly they need teachers!”

  Allie stiffened. “Surely no one would fall for such blatant manipulation.”

  Catherine shook her head. “A dozen women have already agreed to positions as teachers or housekeepers in distant villages, at exorbitant pay, I might add.”

  �
��Pay that may not materialize,” Clay said, his deep voice serving to emphasize his warning. “Who’s to protect them once they leave the ship?”

  Allie felt cold all over.

  “Even Madeleine’s considering an offer!” Catherine cried. “We have to stop them! We must demand that Mr. Mercer act.”

  Allie shook her head. “It’s no use appealing to him. They won’t believe him if he tries to dissuade them. They’ll think his demands no different from his posturing about fraternizing with the ship’s officers.”

  “They don’t believe me, either,” Catherine lamented. “They say it’s sour grapes because I didn’t get an offer. As if I’d want one!”

  Gillian’s face scrunched. “I don’t want sour grapes, either.”

  Clay patted her boot as if in agreement, but Allie puffed out a sigh. “There must be someone they’d listen to, some neutral party they’d respect.”

  “The American consulate?” Catherine suggested.

  “They don’t know him,” Allie pointed out.

  “Mr. Gardiner, the leader of the mission here?”

  “He may very well encourage them to stay.” Allie caught herself rubbing her chin the way Clay did when he was thinking and dropped her hand. Then inspiration struck. Her eyes swung up to meet his, saw his widen as if he knew she was about to ask the impossible.

  “Clay!” she cried. “You’d be perfect!”

  *

  Clay stared at her. A dozen women about to jump ship for a handsome face and the promise of hefty pay, and Allie thought he could do something about it?

  “Your faith in me is humbling,” he said. “But I doubt I have that kind of influence.”

  “More than you know,” Allie assured him. “Besides, you have the authority of living in Seattle. You can explain to them that better opportunities lie ahead.”

  That was the problem. He couldn’t convince himself that Seattle was the best place for many of these women. Even after teaching his lessons, he could see that some were too headstrong to be willing to bend their ways to fit in. Others were so trusting they’d be cheated out of their stake the first day they hit shore.

  Of course, his feelings didn’t mean that Chile was the best place for them, either. Many people in the interior were likely to speak only Spanish or a native language. The country had won its independence more than fifty years ago, but the incident with the Spanish man-o’-war was testimony that fighting continued.

  “Let me talk to Captain Windsor,” Clay offered. “Perhaps we can come up with something.”

  Allie smiled her thanks. He wasn’t sure why she believed in him, but if she was willing to ask for his help for once, he wasn’t about to let her down.

  The captain was less encouraging. “Mr. Mercer already came to complain of the matter,” he said when Clay approached him in the wheelhouse. “I have no authority to lock passengers in their staterooms unless I can prove a danger to the ship. Short of that, I cannot think of a way to keep them aboard if they are determined to leave.”

  Clay rubbed his chin. “There might be a way. Do you agree with me and Mrs. Howard that staying here could be dangerous to the women’s safety?”

  “Assuredly,” Windsor said. “I would not allow my wife or daughter to remain where they could not speak the language and had no resources or friends to appeal to for comfort.”

  Clay leaned closer. “Very well. Then if the Chileans try to take them, here’s what we’ll do…”

  *

  Clay hoped he and the captain wouldn’t have to put their plan into effect, but the week required to resupply the Continental seemed to stretch too long. Whether visiting the mission on the hillside above the town or haggling with sellers in the market, Mercer’s belles remained the most popular women around. The consulate feted them; officers serenaded them. Two even fought a duel over the right to petition a certain lady for her hand. It was enough to turn any woman’s head.

  Allie and Catherine seemed the only ones immune. Even Maddie had made a conquest. Clay was with Allie and Gillian on deck when Maddie came to tell Allie the news.

  “I’m to be the schoolmistress of Valmontera,” she said, red hair nearly as bright as her smile in the sunlight. “And at pay twice what I ever earned, plus my own house. Sure’n it’s more than I ever hoped for.”

  “And do you think perhaps it might be too much to hope for?” Allie asked, gaze searching her friend’s for a moment before rising to Clay’s. He could see the worry written in those deep blue eyes.

  “I thought you wanted to be a baker, Maddie,” he tried pointing out.

  She shrugged, though her smile faded as if their lack of enthusiasm for her choice hurt. “I love baking, to be sure, but I’ve ever been after finding someplace I was wanted. I was a child when we left Ireland…. I don’t remember life there. My da moved us about so much I never felt like anyplace was home. At least I have a fair chance here.”

  “You’ve a chance in Seattle, too,” Allie said, pressing her hand. “I’ve come to think of you as family.”

  “Sure’n you’re a dear for saying so,” Maddie said, face softening. But even that did not change her mind, for she was one of several women waiting in the lower salon the next afternoon, bags packed, expecting a boat from Lota to take them ashore to stay.

  Allie’s pain touched Clay as well as she hugged her friend tight. “Please, Maddie, don’t go. It isn’t safe.”

  “And where has it ever been safe for an Irish lass on her own?” Maddie countered. Despite her brave words, Clay could see she returned both her friends’ embraces tightly, then bent to kiss Gillian on the top of her head. The tremor on the little girl’s lips was matched by the one on Maddie’s.

  Allie gazed at him as if begging him to intervene. He couldn’t. If he and the captain were to put their plan into effect, he had to look as if he agreed with this travesty. She turned her back on him, and Clay followed her and Catherine up the stairs, with the other women trailing behind.

  Mercer, however, had other ideas. He stood in the doorway, blocking the way to the deck. The sunlight outlined his reddish hair with flame. Clay stiffened when he saw what was in the man’s grip.

  “No one takes one of these girls unless they pass over my dead body,” Mercer cried, brandishing a pistol.

  Clay reached over Allie’s head and wrenched the gun from their benefactor’s hand. “Give me that before you kill someone.”

  As he came level with the man, he could see that Mercer’s eyes were wild. “I feel as if I could, sir,” he declared. “Indeed, that is just how I feel. I cannot allow any man to harm one of my ladies.”

  “Sure’n you’ve been planning a fate no worse than this,” Maddie reminded him as she ducked under his arm to reach the deck. “Seattle, San Francisco, Lota, it’s all the same to me. A lady must go where she’ll be best appreciated.”

  Captain Windsor moved down the deck to meet them. “I’m afraid I must intervene. I cannot have such shenanigans aboard my ship.”

  “You see?” Mercer crowed as the other women pushed their way past him to the deck. “Listen to the captain if you will not listen to me.”

  Maddie put her hands on her hips. “I don’t see how you can be ordering us about, captain or no. I didn’t sign on as one of your crew.”

  Captain Windsor inclined his head. “Indeed you did not, Ms. O’Rourke. I was speaking to Mr. Mercer.” A glance around her set the emigration agent to sputtering. “And I am no tyrant,” Captain Windsor continued. “But you cannot leave today. Neither the tide nor the hour is favorable to ferrying all your belongings over to the town now. You and the ladies will have to wait until tomorrow.”

  The women exchanged glances as if they could not believe him. Clay held his breath, his gaze brushing the captain’s. Windsor did not so much as smile.

  Maddie peered over the railing as if to confirm the captain’s words. When she straightened, she snapped a nod. “The tide’s out, ladies. Tomorrow it is, then.” She glanced among the captain, Clay
and Mercer. “And I’d like to see the fellow who can stop me.” She lifted her chin and her skirts and marched back down the stairs. The other women followed, with Mercer scurrying behind, still voicing his protests.

  Allie let out a breath. “Well, at least that gives us more time to reason with her.”

  Catherine shook her head. “Reason cannot prevail here, I fear.”

  Clay could only agree. He excused himself from Allie, feeling her gaze on his back as he approached the captain. “Will you do as I suggested, then?” he murmured.

  Windsor nodded. “I’ll weigh anchor after midnight. By tomorrow, we’ll be far out to sea. But I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes, sir, when Mrs. Howard and Ms. O’Rourke find out that this was your idea.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Men,” Maddie said the next day, “are nothing but bums, cheats and liars.”

  Mutters of agreement echoed around the circle of women who were sitting on the hurricane deck mending. The afternoon was bright; a breeze tugged at the sail above their heads. Those who had more summery gowns were dressed in organza and linen, their hair brushed back from their faces.

  Allie couldn’t help glancing to where Clay and Gillian were watching the waves for mermaids. At that angle, both her daughter and Clay were silhouetted against the sky, and it was a bet as to which studied the sea more seriously.

  She had asked him to keep the women aboard. She’d expected him to argue with her friends, appeal to reason, extol the virtues of their original path. Instead, he’d resorted to trickery. Though part of her was thankful Maddie and the others were safe aboard the Continental, she could not like his methods.

  He’d acted a bit too much like a Howard.

  Mr. Mercer climbed the stairs from the main deck and strolled toward them, smile pleasant. Since the crisis at Lota had been averted, he had been in an uncommonly fine mood. He’d instigated a number of parlor games, as if that would keep his charges’ minds off their shattered dreams.

  “And away from the officers,” Catherine had surmised.

  Now he approached their little circle, hands clasped behind the back of his black frock coat.