Angelfire

by Linda Lael Miller

  The satchel was gone and that meant that Bliss had flown. The little fool—hadn’t she learned anything when she’d run away before and found herself in the hands of men who’d just as soon use her to death as look at her?

  Jamie swore under his breath as he wrenched on clean clothes, stockings, boots. He ran splayed fingers through his hair in lieu of combing it and dashed out the door, nearly colliding with Carra in the hallway.

  “When?” he demanded of the girl, without even slowing his pace as he moved toward the main stairway. There was no point in mincing words, for he knew Carra understood what he was asking.

  “Hours ago, I think,” Carra called after him. “You’ll never catch her now.” There was just the slightest hint of exultation in the young woman’s tone, and Jamie reminded himself that it would be imprudent to strangle her, that her father was a powerful chief with a gift for vengeance.

  He stopped at the base of the stairs, gripping the newel post in one hand and breathing too fast. After a moment or two, Jamie knotted one hand into a fist and slammed it down hard on the banister. “Damn that little—”

  “Better she’s gone,” Carra said in a songlike voice. “We don’t need her.”

  Maybe you don’t, Jamie reflected in miserable silence, but I do. And after I swore to God I’d never need anybody the way I need her.

  Again he raked the fingers of one hand through his hair. “She’s my wife,” he said.

  Carra was so quiet for so long that Jamie finally turned around to see if she was still there. She stood at the top of the stairs, biting down hard on her lower lip, her enormous brown eyes brimming with tears.

  He felt like the worst kind of no-gooder, but Bliss’s safety was paramount in his mind. “She’d be on her way to Auckland,” he mused, climbing the stairs at a slow, thoughtful rate. Once Bliss reached the city, she would undoubtedly head for the docks; she’d made it clear enough that she wanted to work her way to America as someone’s governess or companion.

  Jamie shuddered as he considered just a few of the things that could happen to a young woman alone in the harbor district and stepped up his pace. Within half an hour, he had eaten, extracted a promise from Carra that the animals would be fed and watered in his absence, and saddled his horse.

  Carra’s great pride gave way when he was about to ride out, and she clutched at his leg with both hands, weeping softly. “Oh Jamie, don’t go. Don’t bring her back here—I know I can make you happy if you’ll only give me a chance!”

  Though he ached to be on his way, Jamie couldn’t be unkind to Carra. In frustration, he swept his worn hat off his head and then put it on again. “Carra,” he said, and the word was a gentle reprimand.

  She released her grasp on his thigh and retreated a step, one hand over her mouth, tears still glistening in her eyes. “I’ll stay until you send someone,” she said, after several agonizing moments. “Only until you send someone.”

  Jamie understood that Carra’s sensibilities would not allow her to remain in his house any longer than necessary. If it hadn’t been for the stock, there would have been no real need for her to stay.

  He promised to send one of the shepherds to tend the barn animals and rode away.

  Finding the main flock and relaying the order took another precious hour, and the icy winter sun was high in the sky when Jamie finally set out for Auckland.

  Bliss counted herself fortunate to have caught a ride with a farmer and his wife; she was more than happy to sit on the hard, splintery floorboards of their wagon, her feet dangling out over the rutted road, her satchel at her side.

  In order to distract herself from an aching, hopeless desire to be back in that isolated farmhouse with Jamie McKenna and the rigors of a wagon trip that would take hours, Bliss planned for the future.

  Upon reaching Auckland, she decided, she would go to her Aunt Calandra for guidance.

  Bliss had never actually met her mother’s older sister, but there had been all those kind letters and the parcels, containing clothing and small gifts, that had arrived at Christmas and on birthdays. These things seemed to indicate a soft heart, and at this point in her life, Bliss Stafford McKenna was in sore need of a gentle-natured relative.

  She drew a deep breath, let it out as a despairing little sigh. It would be better this way, she insisted to herself. She’d done the right thing to leave Jamie; her only regret was that she hadn’t found a way to escape earlier, before he’d marked her, forever, as his own.

  Maybe no man would want her now, even in faraway America, where her sins could not follow. Or could they?

  It was too cold to cry—the tears would make ice on her cheeks, she was sure—so Bliss stood steadfast against the impulse. Inside, though, she was all broken and sore.

  She sat up very straight on the floorboards of the wagon and forced her mind back to Auckland and Aunt Calandra. After a few days of visiting that lady, and recovering both her spirit and her energy, Bliss meant to find that position she’d been dreaming of for so many years. She’d leave New Zealand and all its unpleasant memories, Mr. McKenna included, far behind.

  Bliss sighed. It wasn’t going to be all that easy to forget Jamie, she had to confess. He kept coming to mind, summoned up by the smallest thing, and even when she was making a deliberate effort not to think of him, she was aware of the sweet elation he had stirred in her body. Much of that still lingered.

  After many hours—Bliss was not only tired and cold, but excruciatingly hungry—the traffic became thicker on the road and she could see the first vague glow of the city lights. Excitement lifted her flagging spirits, and she was even able to smile. She’d find a place to spend the night, using money she’d borrowed from the top drawer of Jamie’s desk to pay for her lodging. In the morning, she would buy two good dresses, in order to be decently turned out while seeking a position, and following that, she meant to present herself at her aunt’s door.

  The farmer and his wife let her off on the outskirts of the city, near a tram stop, and Bliss smoothed her hair and her rumpled coat and hoped that no one unsavory would notice her. Between the men who had kidnapped her the night she’d run away from the inn and the ordeal on the road with Jamie, Bliss had had enough such problems to last her for a lifetime.

  A lamplighter came around before the tram, moving up and down the quiet streets, and Bliss watched him with interest. His task reminded her a little of the life she’d led at the lighthouse, though she’d had to keep the glass polished and clean as well as light the great lamp when darkness fell.

  The lamplighter paused. “Lost, miss?” he asked kindly, peering at Bliss through spectacles as thick as the bottom of a teapot.

  Bliss swallowed. The man was old, and he looked harmless. “I’m waiting for the tram,” she admitted. “Do you know a good place to board for the night?”

  The bespectacled eyes moved over Bliss’s worn and somewhat dirty coat with polite dispatch. “You from the country?” he countered.

  Bliss thought it must be perfectly obvious that she was, but she nodded all the same, and answered, “Yes. I’ve come to see my Aunt Calandra, and then I’m going to America.”

  “Isn’t everybody?” complained the old man. “Going to America, I mean.”

  “I shouldn’t think so,” Bliss remarked. Plenty of people seemed to be perfectly happy living in New Zealand—Jamie McKenna, for instance.

  “No more trams tonight,” her companion boomed out, abruptly and belatedly. “As to passing the night, Miss Tilly’s is as good a place as any, and it’s right around that corner there.” He paused and pointed. “And down a bit, across from the First Presbyterian Church.”

  Grateful not to be left waiting in the cold for transportation that wasn’t going to arrive anytime soon, Bliss thanked the lamplighter for his help and set off determinedly for Miss Tilly’s. Supper, a good hot bath, and a night of sound sleep would make everything look brighter, for sure and for certain.

  Tilly Aurmont, a tall, angular woman of indete
rminate age, was a bright-eyed spinster who gave the impression of being ever on the alert for evil in all its many forms. She took in Bliss’s soiled, torn evening dress and leaped to the worst possible conclusion.

  “Merciful heavens,” the lady cried, laying one hand to her no-doubt hammering heart. “A harlot!”

  The condition of her gown might have raised questions in anyone’s mind, but Bliss took serious exception to the term harlot. Her eyes flashing and her cheeks hot, Bliss turned her back on Miss Aurmont and walked out. She would have spent the night in the cold had that good woman not come after her and prevailed upon her to have a warm meal in the kitchen.

  Bliss was too hungry to turn down food, but she was eager to clear up any misunderstandings the tattered evening gown might have spawned in Tilly Aurmont’s mind, too. She explained that she’d been wearing the dress, a hand-me-down from Alexander’s sister, at her own engagement party, and realized that she simply couldn’t enter into a loveless marriage even though her father had decreed it.

  Leaving Jamie out of the tale entirely, Bliss went on to describe the rigors and horrors of being a woman alone on the road, especially in winter. Midway through a hearty supper of lamb chops, boiled potatoes, and creamed spinach, Bliss had won Miss Aurmont’s complete and wholehearted sympathy.

  The spinster seemed to be assessing Bliss’s size as she showed her new tenant a plain but very clean room at the front of the house on the second floor. “Yes, indeed,” she speculated, “I think Mary’s clothes would fit you.” The woman sighed and made a tsk-tsk sound with her tongue. “Poor, poor Mary,” she added as a charitable afterthought.

  Bliss was feeling considerably more adventuresome now that she’d eaten and found a safe place to sleep, so she went ahead and asked, “What happened to her? Mary, I mean.”

  Miss Aurmont tsk-tsked again. “Died,” she said. “Hadn’t paid her rent in weeks, so, of course, I kept her trunks. Might be, you’d want to part with a few farthings in return for a dress or two.”

  Guilt, no stranger to Bliss since she’d encountered that cussed Jamie McKenna, washed over her as she thought of the money she’d taken from his desk.

  She drew herself up, took herself in hand. She’d pay Jamie back as soon as she was earning a salary.

  At her nod, Miss Aurmont called for her cook and the two women laboriously dragged a dusty trunk down the stairs from the third floor and into Bliss’s room.

  It never occurred to Bliss to be squeamish about touching or wearing a dead woman’s clothes. She’d rarely owned a new garment; her coat, now so shabby and old, had once been her mother’s.

  She chose a practical black skirt from the trunk, along with two blouses and two complete sets of underthings. Bliss was no sophisticate, but she knew that she’d saved herself a considerable sum over buying such items in retail establishments, and she was pleased. Now she would be able to keep a small sum for emergencies.

  Miss Aurmont was equally pleased by the bargain and left the room smiling, her cook following after, dragging the heavy trunk.

  Bliss availed herself of the hot bath she had paid extra for—there was actually a room, at one end of the hallway, that had been set aside for the purpose—and then made a dash for her chamber, using her coat as a wrapper. Not for the first time, she regretted packing so hastily that first night. Heaven knew, her wardrobe had never been anything to rave about, but she’d had nightclothes and more than two changes of underwear, at least.

  She was settled in bed, the door locked and the electric light—what a marvel that was—turned off. Through the closed and curtained window, Bliss could hear the night sounds of the city, and for a moment she was filled with excitement.

  Then she remembered a detail she had overlooked. In the eyes of God and man, she was Jamie McKenna’s wife, and there could be no annulment now, because the union had been consummated.

  Bliss blushed hotly in the chilly darkness, and once again held an onslaught of tears at bay. In the morning, she would find her Aunt Calandra and everything would be all right after that. Being older and wiser, the woman would surely be able to recommend some workable solution to the problem.

  Still, Bliss’s heart lay heavy in her chest, and it felt empty of all hope and all spirit. She wished she’d never met Jamie McKenna, for knowing him had taken all the glow off the glorious adventure that lay ahead.

  “I hate you, Jamie,” she whispered, immediately knowing that was a lie.

  Early the next morning, Bliss packed her satchel, ate a hearty breakfast, and said farewell to Tilly Aurmont and Cook. She boarded the tram where Cook had said to and set out for Macomber Street, in the center of Auckland, where Miss Calandra Pennyhope resided.

  Riding the tram was an experience worth ten times the ha’penny fare, as far as Bliss was concerned, although the constant clanging of the bell gave her a slight headache. She was already looking forward to her next ride, however, when she got off at the street Miss Aurmont had told her to watch for and began walking due south.

  The houses along Macomber Street were tall and narrow and set so close together that they were almost touching each other. Bliss felt cramped for a moment, and she yearned for Jamie and the countryside and the sea. Then she found number 19 and climbed staunchly up the steps to ring the bell.

  Only when she heard someone approaching from the other side of the door and grasping the knob did it occur to Bliss that Miss Calandra Pennyhope might not welcome her.

  Chapter 10

  JAMIE SLAPPED HIS HAT AGAINST ONE THIGH IN A GESTURE THAT revealed far more about his feelings than he knew. “I spent the night walkin’ the streets near the ’arbor, and there was no sign of ’er!”

  Peony Ryan gave a sigh and went right on filing her fingernails. How she could be so damn calm was a mystery to Jamie.

  “Sounds like she can take care of herself, your Bliss,” she said after an interval of reflection, blowing on one nail and then busily filing again, an expression of concentration turning her beautiful face solemn. Peony had changed little over the years: her golden hair was as bright as ever, and her eyes, green as the hills where Jamie’s flocks grazed, could still draw a man’s soul right out of his body. “For heaven’s sake, have something to eat and get some rest. You’re half-dead, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  Jamie shoved a hand through his hair. Peony didn’t understand, that was all. He wasn’t going to be able to eat or sleep until he found Bliss. He ground his teeth together in a moment of pure fury. When he did find the Duchess, he promised himself, he’d see that she didn’t sit down for a week.

  The idea made him feel better, even though he knew he’d never carry it out.

  “Whatever is going through your mind?” Peony demanded, unexpectedly attentive. “You’ve the most obnoxious grin on your face, Jamie McKenna!”

  Jamie flung his hat onto one of the fancy settees that graced Peony’s elegant parlor, still smiling, and then shrugged out of his sheepskin coat and tossed that aside, too. A maid immediately appeared out of nowhere and took them away.

  “I’ve decided that you’re right,” he replied, going to stand before the blaze crackling in Peony’s ivory fireplace. “It’s not as if Bliss could ’ave found a post this soon, now is it?”

  His oldest and dearest friend was still looking at him in bemusement, but she shook her head. “There aren’t many ships sailing these days. The seas are too rough at this time of year.” The emerald eyes studied him soberly. “What is it that you’re not telling me, Jamie love?”

  He hesitated. His involvement with Peony had never been a romantic one, but the news of his marriage was bound to set her back on her heels nonetheless. She would be hurt that he hadn’t mentioned it first thing, and when Peony was hurt, there was hell to pay.

  “Bliss and I—well, we’re married.”

  Peony was agape. “What?” she asked after a few moments of uninterrupted astonishment. “Jamie McKenna, did you just say that you were—”

  “Married,”
Jamie confirmed bleakly. Green blazes were flaring in Peony’s eyes, and he held out his hands in a gesture meant to stay her notorious temper.

  Peony shrieked an expletive and then snatched a priceless vase from the table beside her and flung it at Jamie. He dodged the thing at the last second, and it shattered musically against the fireplace.

  “If you’ll just listen,” he pleaded as she looked wildly around for something else to throw. “It’s only temporary, this marriage—’er father forced me into it at gunpoint!”

  “Don’t you lie to me!” Peony cried hotly. “I’ve never seen you forced into anything you didn’t want to do!”

  In the nick of time, it came back to Jamie—the secret of settling Peony’s ire. “Then you’ve forgotten Queensland,” he said with quiet valiance, “and the day Increase Pipher ’ad his vengeance.”

  Any mention of the whipping Jamie had endured that long-ago day could be counted on to reduce Peony to the most sentimental kind of sympathy. Like a doting elder sister, she wept a little at the memory.

  “You’re a no-gooder and a wastrel,” she sniffled when she’d composed herself a little. “But I can’t harden my heart against you and you know it, damn your eyes.”

  Jamie laughed and crossed the room to draw his friend into his arms. “Now, did I make a fuss like this when you married Ben Ryan all those years ago?”

  Peony dried her eyes with a delicate handkerchief drawn out of one sleeve and sniffled again. Despite herself, she chuckled. “Yes, as a matter of fact, you did,” she answered. “Oh Jamie, he was a good man, God rest his soul.”

  Jamie touched her forehead with his lips. “Aye,” he said softly, “and you should be findin’ a new one, love. It’s time you ’ad someone to take care of you.”

  She reared back in his arms, looking up at him with tears shimmering in her eyes and a tremulous smile on her mouth. “Take care of me, is it? And who was it took care of you, lad, and brought you all the way to New Zealand in the bargain?”

  The memory filled Jamie with gratitude. He’d have died, after that last encounter with Increase, if it hadn’t been for Peony. Now, with Bliss making a sweet agony of his every waking moment, he was very glad he’d lived.