Patricia Potter (40 page)

There were many holes in the plan. Hell, it wasn’t even a plan. There was no time to allow, as he usually did, for every contingency. But it was the best he could devise on short notice, and he knew Meredith was not going to wait. He saw it in the stubborn set of her jaw, in the gleam in her eyes. She had simply waited too long already. If he didn’t help her, she would try alone. And she was inexperienced at the kind of stealth and danger presented by physically participating in stealing a slave. It was one thing to give information; quite another to run ahead of dogs.

And once Lissa was free, in Canada or wherever she wished to be…

“The Parson,” he said. “We will get Jonathon to marry us. It will serve him right for not telling me about you.”

“And me about you,” she agreed.

“I don’t think,” Quinn said thoughtfully, “he’ll be particularly happy.”

“Why?” she demanded.

Quinn shrugged, but he knew why. It would be for all the reasons he had already told himself: the danger to her, the danger to him, the danger to their usefulness to the Underground Railroad. That came first with Jonathon Ketchtower, the Parson. It always had. Quinn suspected the Parson realized Quinn would never allow Meredith to continue if they fell in love. Just as he must have known that marriage would also mean the eventual end of Quinn’s involvement. Rogue gamblers didn’t have loving wives.

He had been holding Meredith in his arms on the bed, and his arms tightened possessively around her. “I never want to let you go,” he said.

“I never want you to,” she replied, snuggling deeper into them. “I don’t know how I can bear ever being away from you.”

He hesitated. There were many things to say, to decide. “I’ve been thinking,” he said slowly, “about going West. How do you think you would like San Francisco?”

“But the Underground Railroad…?”

“Can do without you,” he said, his eyes once more growing aloof, distant. “The danger is too great.”

“But I can’t…”

“Have you ever been inside a prison?” he asked, his voice taut now, with none of the softness that had been there most of the night.

She shook her head, a lock falling over her forehead, and he brushed it gently aside. But his eyes blazed, and she knew he was seeing something else.

And he was: the convict women in Australia, whose hair had been shorn, whose eyes had been dulled and faces made despairing. They paraded before him. And now, for this instant, Meredith’s face was among them, the lovely features distorted and old and drained. America was not Australia, but prisons were the same. And he didn’t think Meredith could survive it. As stubborn and determined and brave as she was, she could never survive, not intact. He certainly had not. Part of him had been destroyed, the innocent part. He had returned a shell without substance. Until now. He shuddered as he thought about her in prison, and tremors ran through his body.

He felt her hand on him, as if to bring him back from wherever he had gone. When he was finally able to look at her, her eyes were anxious, the golden lights barely visible under the mist of gathering tears. And they were, he knew, for him.

“Tell me,” she said in an achingly gentle tone. “Tell me what happened those years.”

He wondered if he could, if he should, bring the ugliness and despair into her life even for a moment. Yet he had to make her realize what was at stake, what could happen. He had to convince her, before he lost her as he had lost the others.

“The voyage,” he said finally, his voice harsh, devoid of emotion, “was as bad as anything you can imagine, and worse. Three months in the bowels of a rotting ship, three months of black hell. I was chained to another man, an Irishman. He kept me alive when I wanted to die, when my back was festering with infection and my stomach was swollen with hunger.

“He kept me alive with the idea of escape. We understood that the convicts would be sold, portioned out, so to speak, to settlers.” He laughed bitterly. “The British abolished slavery for the black man, but they were perfectly willing to enslave their own citizens for stealing a loaf of bread, or poaching, or, in many cases, because of their politics.

“But the military had other plans for us, for Terrence and me. While the others went to merchants and farmers, we were kept in chains and sent to a road gang where we worked from sunrise to past sunset. We pulled our own cage, a cage on wheels, where we slept chained to the walls. There was not enough room to turn at night.”

Quinn’s fingers bunched in a fist as he remembered the tightness, the enforced proximity of sweaty bodies, the helplessness as they were chained each night, the overwhelming loneliness for those things familiar, those things loving, those things clean and sweet.

Meredith was completely still, as if knowing the slightest move and sound would end his retelling. And he needed to; she could tell from the tense controlled monotone of his voice that the pain had been sitting there in him for a very long time and needed release.

“But Terrence never gave up,” he continued slowly, “and one day he found a nail in the road. A little thing, a nail, but he worked it and worked it, and finally one night succeeded in loosening the rivets in his ankle irons. Night after night, I worked on mine until they too were loose. The next day, when the guards were inattentive, we escaped.” Quinn paused, remembering the elation they had both felt and then the growing certainty of capture as they heard the dogs, and men on horseback, closing in on them. They had had two days of freedom before they were caught.

“When they found us, we were both whipped and then sent to Norfolk Island.” No two words could ever have been said with more hopelessness, and Meredith closed her eyes against the terrible emotion in them. Her hand clutched one of his, trying to absorb some of the raw naked anguish.

He took a long tortured breath and forced his lungs to release it, forced his muscles to relax. He could see his own horror reflected in her eyes, and he cursed himself while hoping it would pierce her confidence, the confidence that nothing could happen to her. Quinn held her tight. “The worst thing about prison,” he said finally, “is the loneliness, the dark hopelessness, Meredith. It’s something I don’t ever want you to know.”

Meredith felt there was more. Much more than what he was telling her. “How did you escape?”

“Norfolk Island’s reputation for brutality shocked even the English,” he said. “There were more and more delegations visiting to ‘investigate conditions,’ and finally orders came to begin closing it down. I didn’t know it then, but my father had sent a man to help me escape. Still, no escape was possible from Norfolk. It was unapproachable except by water, and that was constantly guarded. But as Norfolk was drained of prisoners, I was transferred to the coal mines, and my father’s agent was finally able to bribe the guards and smuggle me aboard a ship as a sailor.”

“And your friend?”

Quinn’s body stiffened, and a facial muscle throbbed in his cheek. “He died.” Quinn said it so curtly that Meredith winced. Suddenly the wall was back between them, and she did not dare another question.

“I’ll be careful,” she whispered, trying to dispel some of the despair in his eyes.

His hands ran up and down her arms, and Meredith could feel the barely restrained possessiveness of each stroke. There was an emotionally charged violence in him, a taut awareness that belied the relaxed poise he usually wore like a cloak. She felt the need growing in him, in herself, a need to cast away the still-vivid memories and enduring anguish of the past. She felt his heart beating against her, and she raised her lips, touching his throat softly, feeling his pulse race. When their lips met, it was with hurricane force, growing in fury and screaming for a liberation that only they could give each other.

Afterward, Meredith lay quivering from the intensity of the sensations that had racked her body and the emotions that savaged her heart. She rested against him, once more listening to his heart, which had now slowed and was beating again with a steady evenness. The tension was gone from his body, and his hand wandered over her face with tender awe. There were still shadows in his eyes, and she wondered if they would always be there, but there was also, if not softness, a certain calm she had not seen before.

“You have the most wonderful, mysterious eyes,” she said, unashamedly bold.

He smiled at her. “Hmm,” he murmured. “I like yours too.” And to prove it he started kissing around at the edges of them.

“But yours are so…secretive. When we had dinner that first night, I thought they were like a maze, so many false paths and hidden traps.”

His smile widened at the description. “Not now, I think,” he drawled in the lazy deep voice that always made her bones melt. “They’re loving you.”

Meredith stared directly into them. “No,” she said slowly. “Your mouth does. Your words do. I think your heart does. But your eyes…they’re still wary.”

Quinn drew back, slightly tipping his head inquisitively to one side.

She nodded. “They never laugh when you do,” she added.

“Habit, I suppose.” He frowned, then a small smile curved his mouth. “It’s why I’m such a damned good gambler.”

Meredith nodded, but part of her sorrowed and feared. When his eyes smiled, when they laughed with his mouth, she would feel safe. Completely safe. Until then…

“You didn’t answer my question. Will you go to San Francisco with me?”

“Why San Francisco?”

He frowned. “Canada’s not safe. If anyone does find out about us, California is far enough away that I doubt anyone would look there. Most of the Californians hate slavery, and I don’t know of any instance where their courts have returned a slave or those accused of helping one. It’s a new state, Meredith, young and free and vigorous.” There was a certain excitement in his face that crowded out the darkness that had been there moments earlier.

“And Lissa can meet us there.”

“Umm,” he said, not wishing to share any of his misgivings. She had not seen Lissa in nearly fifteen years. Perhaps her sister was happy, perhaps she wouldn’t want to come. Or perhaps her sister even hated her for what had happened all those years ago. But he did not give voice to his thoughts. “If she wishes. I know how important it is to you.”

Her eyes sparkled with anticipation. “I love you,” she said.

He dismissed his wayward doubt. “I’ll begin making plans then. If all goes well with Lissa, we can get her to Canada, and then I can stop with you in Vicksburg to visit your brother. The Parson can marry us there. It will take several months, no more, for me to settle my affairs and try to find someone to take my place. Perhaps Jamison might.” His hand stopped stroking her shoulder and rested there a moment. “Until we leave for California, we will have to be careful not to be seen together.”

She grinned suddenly. “I guess I’ll just have to go to your brother for more money.”

“On the
Lucky Lady,”
he agreed.

“And you will have to continue charming Aunt Opal.”

He groaned slightly. “And you harassing my brother.”

She kissed one of his fingers. “You sound as if you enjoy my tormenting Brett.”

“He needs some agitation in his life.”

“I don’t think he agrees,” she said ruefully. “I’m more an anchor around his neck. I always feel guilty when I leave his office, particularly after I give him a gift.” She expected him to ask why. She wanted to share her small joke with him.

She felt him shake and heard the deep laughter she loved so much. “I saw one of your gifts.”

Meredith, her eyes twinkling, swung around. “You didn’t say anything.”

“Perhaps I wanted to forget it,” he teased. “Right after I bumped into you outside the bank, I visited Brett in his office. Your painting was still on his desk.” His hand caressed her hair, running his fingers through the strands.

“Ah, that one,” she said, impishly pouting. “You didn’t like it?”

“I was…a little intrigued by it. Particularly the signature.”

She sat up quickly, suddenly alert. “What do you mean?”

“The name, of course, is different, but the signature showed a certain…similarity to that of M. Sabre.”

“Dear God,” she whispered.

He put a finger to her mouth, running it along her lips. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I doubt if anyone else would ever see paintings by both M. Seaton and M. Sabre…and fewer still would see any similarity. It was just that I had a particular interest in both. And even then I didn’t put it all together at first.” He chuckled approvingly. “You can really produce a damned dismal painting when you try.”

She ignored the questionable flattery, interested instead in an earlier sentence. “You had an interest in M. Seaton?” she questioned doubtfully.

“From the very beginning,” he added. “There was something about her that—”

“Irritated?”

“Fascinated,” he corrected. “Though I had a devil of a time trying to figure out why.”

“I hope so,” Meredith said. “I would hate to think all my efforts were in vain. It takes hours to do my hair.”

“I remember,” he said slowly, “when I went out on deck of the
Lucky Lady
after a card game, and there was a woman whose hair glinted in the early mornin’ sun. I thought I had never seen anything quite as lovely as that figure with her hair blowing in the wind and flanked by a rainbow.”