“I said, I’m fine. It’s just prewedding jitters, is all.”
“Is that all it is, Annabel?” From his place beside Dinah, Arthur leveled his hard, shrewd stare at her. “Or are you having genuine doubts about marrying Bernard?”
“No!” She grimaced at once, that reply sounding far too emphatic to be sincere. “No, Uncle,” she said, striving to seem calm, resolute, and sure. “I’m not having doubts.”
“Because if you are,” he went on as if she hadn’t spoken, “it’s better to have them now than have them afterward.”
“Why would I be having doubts?” she asked, but she could hear the rising timbre of her voice, and she forced herself to bring it down. “Marrying Bernard is the right thing to do,” she said in a quieter tone, but she sounded about as convincing as a huckster at the fair, the kiss that had almost happened burning her lips.
Annabel reached for her glass. Almost doesn’t count, she told herself, gulping down ice water. Almost doesn’t count.
“You don’t have to marry him,” George said, and his gentle comment only made things worse. Heavens, if her stepfather was noticing something wrong with her, she was about as transparent as glass. “It’s not too late to call it off, Annabel.”
The knots of dread that had been in Annabel’s stomach all day twisted and tightened. “I can’t call it off,” she said, suddenly, inexplicably miserable. She glanced around the table, noted the steady gazes directed at her. “I can’t!”
Her eyes welled up with tears of frustration and fear and an uncertainty she’d never felt about her engagement before. It was all because of that man. She hadn’t felt any doubt at all until he’d showed up, and she was the biggest fool that ever lived if she thought even for a second that getting all weak in the knees over a cad she’d known only a few days was worth throwing away everything she’d ever wanted.
“I don’t want to call it off,” she said in the most dignified tone a woman could manage when she was on the verge of tears. “And even if I did, I wouldn’t dream of doing that to Bernard. He would be crushed.”
She didn’t miss how Arthur and her mother exchanged glances at that, and she just couldn’t take any more.
“I’m not calling it off!” she cried, tossing down her napkin, at the end of her rope. “I know that’s what you want me to do, Uncle Arthur, but I’m marrying Bernard and that’s that. Now, if y’all will excuse me, I am going to bed. I have a big day tomorrow, and I need my sleep.”
For the third time in less than twelve hours, Annabel found herself running away. She returned to her room, and this time, she intended to stay there until the wedding. She had Liza draw her a bath, hoping the warm water would help her relax. As an additional aid to her frayed nerves, she ordered a glass of hot milk and drank it while Liza helped her into her nightgown and brushed out her hair. Afterward, Annabel dismissed the maid for the night and slid between the sheets of her sleeping berth, telling herself all she needed was a good night’s rest as she settled her head on the pillow. Tomorrow morning, in the clear light of day, with her mind refreshed and her resolve renewed, these insidious doubts and fears would be gone. In fact, they’d probably seem downright silly.
Christian was not a disciplined man, but he was a realistic one. He was also a gambler, and a good one. He knew when his luck was out, the chips were stacked against him, and it was time to fold his hand. By the end of the night, he knew he’d reached that point.
A man couldn’t talk a girl out of marrying an idiot if he couldn’t talk to her at all. After his conversation with Annabel down in steerage the other morning, Christian had tried to find a way to talk with her again, but there had been none. She had spent the past three days clinging to her fiancé or her sister like a limpet or hiding herself away in her room, leaving him no opportunity to have another go at changing her mind. It wasn’t likely he’d have any chance tomorrow morning, either, since the ceremony was scheduled for ten o’clock.
He spent the evening before the wedding in the main ballroom, hoping if he could finagle a dance with her, he’d have one last chance, but she and her family had dined in a private room, and Arthur joined him in the ballroom only long enough to admit defeat. His niece, he said, had gone to bed.
There was nothing left to do, as far as Christian could see, unless he was prepared to barge into her room while she was donning her wedding gown to try talking some sense into her one last time.
A tempting idea, he acknowledged as he entered his stateroom suite late that night and closed the door behind him; tempting in more ways than one. Smiling a little, he allowed himself to imagine her standing before him in lacy white undergarments as he removed his dinner jacket and waistcoat and loosened his tie.
She’d be surrounded by filmy piles of lace and tulle, he thought, leaning back against the door behind him and closing his eyes. The sun from the window would light up her loosened hair, turning it to fire. As the picture in his mind became more vivid, the arousal he’d felt the other day when he’d almost kissed her, arousal he’d had to work for three days to suppress, came flooding back. Damn, he thought with chagrin, he had a fine imagination.
Still, while barging into her room might be a tempting idea, it was probably a futile one as well. Annabel Wheaton had proved every bit as stubborn as her uncle had made her out to be, and she wasn’t likely to see reason at this late date. No, he’d played and lost.
Moving softly so as not to wake Sylvia, who’d gone to bed nearly two hours ago, he crossed the sitting room of the suite to pour himself a cognac. After all, if a man was going to bid farewell to half a million dollars, he definitely ought to have a drink in his hand when he did it.
He sat down in one of the chairs of the sitting room with his drink, trying to contemplate his next move. Upon arrival in Liverpool the day after tomorrow, he’d book a return passage to New York and carry on with his original plans. After all, what else could he do?
A sound outside his room suddenly diverted Christian’s attention, a soft click that sounded like a latch being pulled back, followed by the sound of a door opening. He frowned, straining to hear, fancying it was the door to Annabel’s stateroom suite that had just been opened.
He’d heard no one come down the corridor, he’d heard no knock or murmur of voices, so no one in her party had rung for a servant or the steward. The door closed again, and when the soft pad of footsteps passed his door, curiosity impelled him to have a look.
He set aside his glass, rose, and walked to the door of his stateroom and opened the door. When he leaned out, he saw that it was Annabel herself who had left her suite and was now walking away from him down the corridor. That dark chestnut hair was unmistakable, long, loose, and gleaming beneath the electric lights of the passage. She was dressed in a loose-fitting satin tea gown of ice blue, and dangling from her hand was a short, squat bottle that she carried by one finger hooked in the glass loop of the bottleneck.
Curious, he waited until she’d disappeared around a corner halfway down the passage, then he snagged his jacket and left his own room. He slipped into his jacket as he followed her, turning where she had just in time to see her vanish through the door that led to the servants’ stairwell. Not wanting her to know he was trailing her until he knew where she was headed, he took care to be as quiet as possible as he went through the same door she had, and he slipped off his shoes before he followed her down the servants’ stairs. He could hear the clatter of her shoes against the steel, and by listening carefully, he was able to discern from the rhythm of her footsteps whether she was going down steps or turning on a landing, and by the time he heard the click of a door opening, he knew she had gone all the way down to E-deck, the bottom of the ship. He doubted she was going to the engine rooms, so the only place she could be headed was cargo. Concern began to mingle with his curiosity. What on earth was she doing?
He quickened his steps, and when he reached the bottom, he donned his shoes again, opened the door leading out of the stairwell, and em
erged into an enormous cargo bay. A few of the electric lights had been switched on, probably by Annabel herself, but he couldn’t see her amid the stacks of cargo.
“Annabel?” he called.
A groan issued from farther along the cargo bay in reply, but nothing more.
“Annabel, are you all right?”
“Go away!”
He ignored that rather belligerent order, and started in the direction of her voice, making his way amid stacks of crates and steamer trunks, and it wasn’t until he’d almost reached the other side of the cargo bay that he found her, sitting in the back of a cherry-red Model A Ford.
She was seated in one of the two angled passenger seats in the rear of the vehicle, her bare feet propped up on the driver’s seat. She hadn’t turned the lighting on at this end of the bay, and in the dimness, her satin gown shimmered like liquid silver.
At the sight of him, she groaned again, her head lolling back in an obvious gesture of exasperation. “Why, Lord?” she asked, staring at the ceiling overhead as if talking to God. “Why have you brought the plagues of Egypt down upon me?”
Not the least bit discouraged by being the plagues in question, he moved to the back of the Ford. “When a young woman goes wandering about the ship in the middle of the night, someone has to look after her,” he said, pulling open the latch to unfasten the door at the rear of the vehicle. He climbed between the two wing seats and sat down in the empty one, giving her a grin. “Think of me as your guardian angel.”
“More like devil,” she complained, but she didn’t sound angry, only rueful.
“Smashing car,” he commented, taking a glance over the vehicle as he settled back in his seat, a seat that, like hers, angled inward, enabling the two backseat passengers to converse with each other more comfortably. “Yours, I trust?” When she confirmed that with a nod, he added, “You must let me drive it sometime. I’ve never driven a Ford.”
“No one drives my car but me,” she told him. “And Mr. Jones, of course. He’s our chauffeur, and an expert motorist. He taught me to drive.”
“I’m a rather good motorist myself, I’ll have you know. At Scarborough Park, we hold a charity auto race every August, and Andrew and I always enjoyed the privilege of driving the cars entered in the race.”
“Well, the Ford wouldn’t ever win. It only goes twenty-eight miles an hour.”
“Still, I should like to take it for a spin. I’m not bragging about my skill, I promise. I’ve never yet had a smashup. Not even close.”
“No,” she said again. “Only me and Mr. Jones. Not even Bernard is allowed to drive my car.”
“That’ll change after the wedding,” Christian assured her. “All your personal property becomes Rumsford’s when you marry him.”
“No, it doesn’t. I kept my stuff separate in the marriage settlement.”
“And you think that makes a difference?” he countered. “If Rumsford chooses to take your car out, who’s to stop him?”
She gave him that skeptical little frown, the one she always had when she thought he was talking nonsense, but she didn’t argue the point. Instead, she shifted in her seat and crossed her feet, a move that slid her skirt several inches up her shins, rewarding him with a view not only of her delectable pink toes and fine ankles, but also of a pair of shapely calves.
Still, as much as he appreciated the view, he also appreciated that the cargo bay was at least fifteen degrees colder than the upper tiers of the ship. He moved to take off his jacket. “Here,” he said, offering it to her, surprised when she shook her head in refusal. “Aren’t you cold?”
“Nope.”
“You must be. It’s bloody freezing in here. Humor me,” he added when she still didn’t take it.
She leaned forward, allowing him to drape it around her shoulders. “Thank you, but like I said, I’m not cold.” She reached down to retrieve the bottle he’d seen earlier and held it aloft for him to see. “In fact, I am as warm as toast.”
He grinned again, enlightened. “I thought you didn’t drink.”
“I never said that. I said I don’t like the taste, but I’m not a teetotaler. I just can’t sleep, is all, and I thought a drink would help.” She held out the bottle by the loop handle. “Have some?”
He studied the fat jug for a moment. “You didn’t obtain this from the steward,” he said as he took it.
“No,” she said with a chuckle. “This ship’s too grand for that. But George always takes several bottles along when we’re traveling. It’s handy for medicinal purposes.”
He caught the slurring of her S’s, and he could tell she was already feeling the effects of this particular medicine. “And what ails you this evening, Annabel? You’re not nervous about tomorrow, are you?”
“Cryin’ all night!” She made a sound of exasperation. “If one more person mentions prewedding jitters to me, I’ll go crazy.”
That emphatic reply told him that not only he, but several other people as well, had hit upon the same theory. He deemed her nervousness and insomnia as very good signs, and he felt a rekindling of hope. Perhaps he still had one last chance to talk her off the cliff she was so determined to jump from. Perhaps.
Chapter Seven
He doubted getting drunk with Annabel was a tactic Arthur would approve of, but it was his last chance. The squat shape of the bottle made it impossible to hold with one hand, so Christian used both to bring it to his lips, but a second later, he was wishing he hadn’t. Taking a swallow, he immediately choked, his throat on fire. “Good God,” he said, his body giving a convulsive shudder. “What is this?”
She laughed, a low, throaty laugh. “Moonshine, sugar. Pure Mississippi moonshine.”
He thrust the bottle back toward her. “It’s foul. No wonder you don’t like the taste.”
She leaned forward, hooked her finger in the handle, and pulled the bottle out of his grasp. Twisting her wrist, she flipped the jug so that its weight rested on top of her elbow, then she raised it to her lips and took another swallow. “Aw, after a few nips, it’s not so bad.”
He eyed her, doubtful. “And where you come from, that is considered medicine?”
“For near anything that ails you.”
He considered that, sliding his gaze to her bare feet for a moment. Then he held out his hand. “Pass that back.”
With a chuckle, she did so. He held the bottle as she had done, balancing its weight on his arm, and took another swallow. He choked again, but it burned a little less this time.
“So,” she said as he settled the jug on his knee, “Why are you following me around the ship? Couldn’t you sleep, either?”
“I could not. When I heard your door open and close, I was curious, and when I saw you with this bottle, I knew I had to follow you.” His gaze roamed over her face, a face that would keep any man up at night. “A beautiful woman should never drink alone.”
Her lips parted, her tongue darted out to moisten them, and in that heart-stopping instant, he knew both of them were unable to sleep for the very same reason. “Is that a rule?” she whispered.
It shouldn’t be, not for her and him. He ought to go, now, because scarcely five minutes in her company, and he was already thinking about what might happen if he stayed. He wanted to do what he’d been hired to do, but he also liked her, and he didn’t want to toy with her. And he would if he stayed. He’d toy with her, and possibly a lot more. He moved to leave.
“I couldn’t sleep because of the things you said.”
Her soft admission had him sinking back into the seat, and he told himself he’d behave. He would. Even if it killed him. “What I said?” he echoed her. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
“I think it was the part about love that kept me up,” she said, and reached for the bottle to take another swallow. “Or maybe it was the chilblains.”
He laughed. He couldn’t help it. The juxtaposition was too absurd not to laugh.
“Or maybe,” she went on in a musing voice
, “it’s how he likes to order my food for me, and he doesn’t like it when I order it myself.” She paused, but before he could reply that knowing Rummy as he did, he wasn’t surprised, she went on, “You asked me this morning if I want love when I married. I don’t think I ever answered you.”
“No, you didn’t.”
She took her feet down and turned to face him. Setting the bottle on the floor, she leaned toward him, reminding him for a moment of a little girl telling a secret. It made him want to smile. “I was in love once.”
“Ah. The blackguard from Mississippi.”
“His name was Billy John Harding. And he was the son of the richest man in Gooseneck Bend. His family had fourteen hundred acres of prime bottomland planted in cotton. My mama’s family sharecropped on their land.”
“Sharecropped?”
“Tenant farming, you call it, but that wasn’t the only reason the Hardings were rich. They also owned the local bank. Harding Brothers Building and Loan. I knew Billy John all my life. He was seven years older than me, and I was always kind of in love with him. All the girls were, one time or another. He had a way with him, that’s for sure. But the summer I was seventeen, I went away to stay with friends in Hattiesburg, and the first Sunday after I came back, I saw him lookin’ at me after church. Lookin’ at me different.”
She met Christian’s eyes. “I think you’re the sort of man who knows just what I mean by that.”
He did. Christian drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. It wasn’t something he was particularly proud of, but he knew.
“He looked at me like he’d never seen me in his life before,” she went on. “Like all of a sudden, I was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen.”
Christian opened his mouth to point out that the chap had probably felt that to be the absolute truth, but she spoke before he could.
“Like I mattered. Like I was the most important thing in the world. I fell for him that day, right there in church. Fell for him like a ton of bricks. Within a week we were meeting in secret down by Goose Creek. He wanted—”
Trouble at the Wedding Page 11
