Full Steam Ahead (29 page)

N
icole’s legs bounced restlessly in the carriage as it rolled down Thirty-Fifth Street. Little more than two weeks ago she’d traveled this same road with a similar dread burning in her stomach—only this time it had nothing to do with her father’s health and everything to do with his likely disappointment. She’d lost the Lafitte Dagger, the Renard family legacy. He’d forgive her for it, of that she was sure—he did love her, after all—but the idea of him looking upon her with crushing disappointment, and knowing she was the cause, nearly made her wish she’d met her end in that river.

Nearly . . . but not quite.

She turned from the view of familiar houses passing by to look at the man beside her, the one holding her hand and smiling at her in reassurance.

“Are we almost there?” He pulled her hand up to his lips to press a kiss upon her knuckles.

She managed a nod before turning back to the window, needing to watch their progress toward Renard House like a patient watching the approach of a doctor’s suturing needle,
knowing the end result would be painful but unwilling to let the jab take her by surprise.

Thank God she wasn’t alone. Her grip tightened on Darius’s hand, and his thumb immediately caressed her fingers in tender strokes. The knots in her abdomen eased slightly. She could do this. No matter what happened with her father, Darius would be there, supporting her, loving her.

Nicole inhaled a long quivering breath as the white columns of Renard House came into view. The rented carriage rolled to a stop. Any moment, the driver would arrive to open the door.

You can do this.
She tried to believe the words, but her heart pounded so heavily, she could barely hear herself think them.

Her gaze was so focused on the window, she didn’t see Darius’s hand until it cupped her chin and forced her face around. “I love you,” he whispered.

Then, before she could decipher his intentions, his lips brushed hers in a kiss so tender it stole her breath. She expected him to stop there, but he lingered, teasing each corner of her mouth until her eyes slid closed, the feelings he induced overwhelming her senses. Only then did he pull away.

And only then did she hear the hinges creak as the driver opened the door.

The scoundrel. They could have been caught in a compromising position. In front of her house, her parents! Yet she had to admit it’d been a rather successful distraction. And the blackguard knew it. Why, he looked downright pleased with himself, leaning back against the cushioned seat, arms crossed over his chest. She scowled at him, but it only earned her a grin in return. One she couldn’t resist answering in kind.

Heavens, how she loved this man.

The driver reached his hand in to assist her down, only it wasn’t the driver they’d hired at the docks. She recognized
the thick fingers and the weathered skin of the man who’d been handing her out of carriages for as long as she could remember.

Swallowing down a resurgence of nerves, she slid her hand into his and lifted her head to meet the stoic features of her family’s coachman. “Hello, John.”

The man startled at her voice. His eyes flew wide and zeroed in on her face. “Can it be? Miss Nicki?” The man who’d never allowed her to tease a smile out of him broke into a full-blown grin, his cheeks retracting into wrinkled folds like gathered curtains about a window. “It
is
you. God be praised! Welcome home!” Then, as if the smile itself wasn’t enough to knock her off-kilter, he grabbed her to him in a hug so full of joy, he bounced with it.

Tears moistened her lashes as she wrapped her arms about his shoulders and leaned into his embrace.
Home.
She was truly home.

Nicole felt Darius’s presence behind her, and when John finally released her, she turned to introduce him, but the coachman had already spun toward the house.

“Mrs. Renard!” he shouted as he scuttled forward. “It’s Nicki. She’s come home to us!”

Nicole couldn’t move, could barely breathe. The moment hung suspended. A foggy part of her brain registered Darius’s hand at her back, but it was little more than a warm sensation, for all her attention narrowed in on the door standing between the front two columns.

Less than a heartbeat later, the door swung open and her mother ran through it. Apron flapping, sleeves rolled to her elbows, fingers covered in dough—a state in which her oh-so-proper mother would
never
greet a guest—she dashed down the front walk, her eyes frantically scanning the yard. “Nicole?”

All hesitancy fled Nicole’s soul. With a sob, she sprinted forward. “Maman!”

The two fell together in a tearful embrace, both too overcome for words. Her mother pulled back to kiss Nicole’s cheeks, then wrapped her again in her arms, as if she couldn’t decide how best to show her affection.

“Nicki?” A deep, rasping voice reverberated across the air.

Her
maman
stepped back and swiped at her eyes with the back of her wrist. And there was her father, hunched in the doorway, grasping the wall for support.

“Anton!” Her mother instinctively took a step toward him before stopping. “John. Help him. Bring him to us.”

“No, Maman.” Nicole straightened her shoulders and stepped out of her mother’s loving embrace. The time had come. “I will go to him.”

“He has been out of his mind with worry these past weeks,” her mother murmured softly as Nicole began moving toward the house. Her mother shadowed her. “He’s not been able to get out of bed since the letter came from Monsieur Ackerman, informing us that you never arrived. I haven’t seen him on his feet in days.”

Yet somehow he’d managed to climb out of bed and make his way to the front door. Nicole’s heart throbbed. If he could do all that for her, she could cross the yard for him. No matter what his reaction to her news might be, she owed him an accounting, and she’d not shirk her duty.

John reached him first and propped him up with an arm around his ribs, allowing him the dignity of standing straight. As Nicole moved to navigate the porch steps, Darius suddenly appeared at her elbow, offering his arm and his smile. Her fingers brushed his sleeve. The steely strength beneath her touch fortified her spirit.

Together. They would face this together.

She reached the porch landing and stepped away from Darius, toward her father. He looked so frail, yet his eyes locked on her as if she was all he could see.

“Nicki.” His voice quavered over her name, and his hand reached for her cheek, his arm trembling from the effort.

She rushed forward and maneuvered her cheek against his palm, clutching his hand with her own to hold it firmly against her face. Her eyes slid closed and a tear slipped from between her lashes. “Papa.”

“I thought you were lost to me, child.” Somehow his head came to rest against hers. “Lost forever. And it was all my doing.”

“No, Papa.” Nicole lifted her head and looked him in the eye. “I went willingly. Knowing the risks.” She’d not saddle him with that guilt. It wasn’t his to carry. “Our plan may not have worked quite as we’d hoped, but it didn’t fail, either.” She paused to inhale a steadying breath. “I brought you an heir, Papa.”

She glanced behind her and reached for Darius. His warm fingers surrounded hers with a firm grip. Assured. Strong. Then his thumb stroked the edge of her wrist. Loving. Supportive. Everything she’d ever hoped for in a husband.

“Papa, I want you to meet the man I will marry.” Her chin jutted up slightly at the pronouncement, announcing to both men that this part wasn’t up for debate. “He has also agreed to act as your heir, should you wish it. Darius, this is my father, Mr. Anton Renard. Papa, this is Mr. Darius Thornton . . . of the King Star Shipping Thorntons.”

Darius sketched a quick bow. “An honor to meet you, s—”

“King Star?” her father interrupted. “Out of New York?” Gone was the regret, the sorrow from her father’s gaze. A
glow of triumph kindled there now, a triumph she’d given him. She prayed the rest of her story would not extinguish it.

A proud smile creased Darius’s face as he answered. “Yes, sir. My father established the company, and my brother and I have shared in the running of it since we came of age.”

“Nicki, my girl. You did it!” her father crowed. “Why did I ever doubt you would? You’ve never failed at anything you set out to do.”

But she had.

“Papa, I-I took the dagger. I thought to protect you and Maman. But now . . . it’s gone.” She blurted out the truth before she could lose her courage.

“What?” Her father croaked the disbelieving syllable as he collapsed. John grunted at the sudden weight and struggled to maintain his grip.

Nicole flinched, her gaze dropping to the porch floor. “Fletcher Jenkins—”

“John, take him inside.” Her mother bustled between, acting the buffer as she always did when tensions flared between father and daughter. “I refuse to be introduced to my future son-in-law with my hands and arms caked in crusty bread dough.”

“I’ll hear her explanation now, Pauline,” her father rallied enough to growl.

Pauline Renard lifted her neck like a regal swan unperturbed by the wolf barking at the edge of her pond. “You’ll hear her explanation in the parlor, Anton. Where we’ll all be more comfortable.” With that she swept past them, completely confident that her wish would be granted.

And of course it was.

Her father groused but ordered John to take him to his chair in the sitting room. By the time the coachman had her
father settled, her mother reappeared, hands clean, hair repaired, and apron gone. She immediately went to Darius and clasped his hands. Leaning close, she placed a kiss on each of his cheeks. “Welcome to the family,
mon
fils.
”

Then she turned a teasing smile on her daughter. “He’s a handsome one, and he looks at you like your father looked at me when we were courting.”

She glanced over to her husband, her face softening. “Anton still looks at me that way from time to time. I pray your man will do the same for you after two and a half decades of marriage.”

“Pauline!” Papa grunted at her from his chair across the room.

Her mother smiled, the teasing light in her eyes only growing brighter as she patted Nicole’s shoulder and moved to stand beside her husband’s chair. She laid her hand on his shoulder, letting him feel her support. Nicole watched as her father sat a bit straighter, as if his wife’s loyalty infused him with strength. As she and Darius took their seats on the sofa, Nicole couldn’t resist reaching for the man at her side. He immediately wrapped her hand in his, and she felt her own infusion pour through her veins.

“Now,” her father said. “Tell me about the dagger.”

“Fletcher Jenkins has it.”

She expected him to roar. To accuse her of being careless or weak or any of a hundred other things she’d already called herself. But he just slumped farther into his chair, his eyes slipping closed on a resigned sigh. Somehow that was even worse.

“I’m so sorry, Papa.” Nicole slid off the couch to kneel at his feet. She raised her hand, intending to touch his arm, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it, fearing the pain his
rejection would send spiraling through her if he drew away from her touch. “You were right. I never should have taken it. I did all I could to keep it safe, but in the end, I lost it. It’s my fault, and—”

“No.” The single word shot through the quiet room like a rifle crack.

Nicole watched her father’s eyes open, and his gaze traveled to a point high above her head. Her mother, too, shifted her attention to the man who had risen to stand at her back. Nicole twisted to see Darius standing legs apart, as if braced for a fight. His expression dark, his eyes narrowed in on her father.

“It was
not
Nicole’s fault.” He enunciated each word as if forging it of gold and pressing his stamp into it. “Your daughter is the most courageous, clever, warm-hearted woman I have ever met. She escaped the Jenkins brothers time after time, uncaring of her own safety, wanting only to spare those in my household whom she had come to care about. She used herself as a decoy. She left the true dagger with me and asked me to bring it to you. But I refused. By the time I tracked her down, Fletcher Jenkins had her waist-deep in the Trinity and was attempting to drown the truth out of her.”

Her mother whimpered at that, but Darius showed no mercy, just continued on with his blunt tale. Unable to watch, Nicole dropped her head and stared at the leaf pattern in the rug by her knees.

“I gave up the dagger, Mr. Renard. Willingly. Knowing all it meant to Nicole and to you, I gave it to Fletcher Jenkins. And I’d do it again in a heartbeat. I would forfeit anything to protect her. Even my life.”

“Good.” Was that her
father’s
voice? “Then maybe you’re worthy of her after all.”

Nicole’s head shot up.

“Nothing is more important to me than my daughter.” Her father’s gaze dipped down to meet hers. “Nothing.”

Nicole’s heart stuttered as she recognized the truth in his eyes.

“Every day after we learned of her improvised travel plans,” he said, his attention never wavering from her face, “I prayed she’d send word she had made it safely to New Orleans. I considered sending my fastest steamer to fetch her but did not know if she was in Liberty or somewhere along the way. And I feared my efforts would lead Jenkins to her. So I just waited. Hoped.”

He hung his head. “But word never came. And I began fearing the worst—fearing that in my desire to secure an heir, I’d sent my own child to her death.”

“Oh, Papa.” Silent tears streamed down Nicole’s face. Her hand found his arm, all hesitancy vanishing in an instant. The look that passed between them stripped away years of insecurity, of worrying that she’d never measure up. All this time she’d been using the wrong measuring stick. His longing for a son did not diminish his satisfaction with her as a daughter. It never had. She was the one who’d put that pressure on herself, the pressure to be something other than what she was meant to be.

Darius lowered himself to the floor beside her and wrapped his arm about her shoulders. “We notified the Rangers of the theft as well as the repeated attempts on Nicole’s life.”