Patricia Potter (41 page)

She flushed. “I didn’t think anyone was up.”

“I couldn’t figure who she was. Her face was turned away, and all I saw was that hair and I thought it must be spun gold. I went over the passenger list, and the only possibility…”

“Was me?” she guessed delightedly. She liked the idea of his confusion.

He was silent a moment. “How did you get involved in the Underground Railroad?”

“Gradually. My father…didn’t want me home during school vacations, and I started going to Cincinnati with Sally. The Meriweathers were abolitionists and I began reading accounts of slaves who had escaped. Then one Christmas, a group of fugitives needed help, and…for the first time in my life I felt needed. There was a mother whose baby had died on the way. There was so much grief in her face as she clutched the child to her, but triumph too. ‘She dead,’ she told me. ‘But she free.’It wasn’t until then, I think, that I realized how tragic slavery was.”

Meredith hesitated a moment, then continued slowly. “I knew how I felt when Lissa was taken away, the loss I felt. And I suddenly realized that I had grieved over
my
loss. Mine. I couldn’t really understand hers. But I started to comprehend a little that Christmas. I know I can never really understand how it is to have no freedom at all.” She looked at his dark turbulent eyes.
He
knew. And because she loved him so, she now knew better the agony of it. “I know I can’t even imagine the horror of being bought and sold, of being used and discarded without a thought. But I saw that woman’s pain, and her belief that her child was better dead than alive as a slave, and I knew I couldn’t stand by and watch, not any longer.”

She watched him carefully, wanting so badly for him to understand. “I can do so little. Just encouragement here and there, a little money, a map, a name. It’s not much, nothing to equal your efforts.”

“Ah, Meredith,” he said. “It’s a great deal. Every escape is a victory, every fugitive who survives to tell his story is another step closer to abolition. I just hate the danger you’re in.”

She stared up at him. “The danger to me is slight. But you’re actually transporting them.” Her throat went dry as she thought of what could happen to him, what had happened to others. She had heard of many who were in prison, and some who had died there. And Cam? She didn’t even want to think of that. She had learned in the past few days how much he meant to Quinn.

“I’m very careful, love,” he said.

“But why do you continue?” she said. She now knew the full cost to him if he were caught. After what he had already gone through, more time in prison would be much worse for him than anyone else, and there was always the possibility that an angry government would send him back to England. Involvement must require enormous courage on his part.

“Don’t misjudge me, Meredith,” he warned softly as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. “Don’t think I’m something I’m not.” Quinn hesitated. “When I returned to Louisiana, I was so full of hate I came damned close to destroying myself.

“And then I found Cam and, in so many ways, he was a mirror image of that hate and rage. We simply found an outlet for it. Every fugitive we assist is a strike back, a blow against systems that brutalize in the name of profit, and law, even religion.” He hesitated, his hand caressing her arm. “I don’t do it for noble reasons,” he said tightly. “It isn’t altruism, it’s revenge, plain and simple. I’ve enjoyed tweaking noses, but I won’t risk you.”

Meredith knew he was warning her, telling her not to expect that knight in shining armor she had confessed she once thought him to be. Perhaps he even believed his own stated reasons. But she didn’t. There was too much gentleness in him. It spoke of caring, of a deep compassion for others, although he sought to hide it under arrogance and surface indifference. Even now, even when he had asked her to marry him, he still maintained barriers between them. Caution was so embedded in him, self-protection so much a part of who he was that she wondered if he would ever be wholly hers. She swallowed, knowing she would take whatever he chose to give her, whatever he was able to give her.

She felt his hands tense, and she reached one of hers to his back, touching the scars. Her fingers ran over them, and she felt him stiffen again.

He looked in her face and saw the grief there, the tears that hovered in her eyes. Tears for him. And for a moment he regretted telling her what he had. Thank God, he hadn’t told her the full story, the bitter finish that he knew would stay with him forever. He would not make her bear that also.

He wiped a tear away. “There’s no need, love,” he said. “It’s over, and now I have you.” To distract her, he started licking the nape of her neck, and soon he had distracted himself too. With new urgency, his hand moved along her body, claiming it as his own. His need, the deep desperate need of his heart, made his kiss rougher than usual. “I love you,” he murmured.

“And I love you,” she whispered. “Always and forever.”

“And you’ll go with me?”

“Anywhere,” she replied softly. “Anywhere.”

Cam and Daphne walked among the small cluster of huts that housed many of the free men and women of color in Cairo. Most of the men worked on the docks, transporting cargo from boats using the Mississippi to those plying the Ohio River and vice versa. The women worked mostly as maids for the merchant families. It was a poor area, but the residents, only too conscious of their cherished free status, kept both their homes and tidy little gardens in good repair.

It had taken Cam three days of hard riding to reach Cairo. He had purchased a strong, albeit inglorious-looking horse in Cincinnati and had followed the line of the river, avoiding the towns and settlements along the way. He had traveled alone before, and he and Quinn had worked out a plan if he were stopped. It was crucial to Quinn’s safety that Cam be known as his slave. If Cam were to be caught or stopped, he would play the runaway fugitive, begging not to be taken back for the reward. The reward was the key. Both Cam and Quinn knew it unlikely anyone would hurt property that carried a substantial bounty.

But Cam didn’t mean to be stopped. He had learned much during his years with Quinn, including the ability to play many roles, both humble slave, which was the most difficult, and confident freeman. When he and Quinn traveled North, Cam sometimes spoke to small private groups about his experiences. The recitals were difficult. They would always be difficult. But, he knew, they were important. The story had to be told. Although books like
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
fueled antislavery opinion, the South continued to portray the institution as benign, even compassionate. Only those who had escaped could relate the true reality and degradation of slavery.

He enjoyed the ride, hard as it was. It gave him time to think. And he relished the freedom, both of his body and thoughts. When he was a slave, he had hated the sun for it was his enemy, as was the cold wind sweeping off the river. But now, protected by a plain but warm coat, he enjoyed the taste of both. He was still filled with the wonder of it, of the ability to go where he wished, when he wished. It gave him immense pleasure that he carried papers, sewn into his suit, that would give Daphne that same gift.

When he had reached Cairo, he extracted the papers from their secret place and went immediately to the home sheltering Daphne. When he asked her to go for a walk, she agreed readily.

There was still a fragility about her, but Cam had uncovered a strength that seemed to be growing daily. Her smile, which had once been so rare, came easier now. It had greeted him and widened by the time they reached a private wooded place along the river. When they stopped, he handed her the papers, and she looked at them blankly. They looked official, but she couldn’t read.

When he explained what they were, she stared at the documents with disbelief. He recalled his own confusion when the captain had done the same with him. “It’s real,” he said softly.

Daphne clutched the document to her, her eyes searching his, barely believing the unlikely, the impossible.

“But how…?”

“Miss Meredith,” he said with a small chuckle. “The capt’n ran into her in Cincinnati and bought your freedom.” He had wanted to tell her the truth, that Meredith Seaton was a member of the Underground Railroad and had planned to free Daphne herself, but the captain had convinced him otherwise. It was safer for Miss Seaton if her own role was known by only a few.

“It’s true then,” she whispered. “It’s really true.”

He nodded, watching her as she continued to hug the papers to her chest, still unable to comprehend the full majesty of what had happened.

Free!

Free from the constant fear of being taken back, of the soul-robbing horror of the slave jails and auction, of white men reaching for her and telling her to open her mouth so they could study her teeth as they would a horse, free of the humiliation of being herded through the streets like an animal.

Wild, giddy feelings—gratitude, admiration, love, most of all, love—rushed like great storm clouds through her, and the tears came faster, washing away the bitterness and terror. Her waist was grabbed by two huge hands, and with bubbling joy, she felt herself lifted and swung around in circles until she laughed delightedly. She heard his deep laughter join hers, and together they spun, the sound of freedom echoing through the street and drifting up into the sky.

C
hapter 22

WHEN THE
OHIO STAR
reached Cairo, Quinn quickly found Cam at the home where Daphne was staying. He grinned as he watched Cam’s gaze follow the ex-slave wherever she went. And the smile grew broader as he noticed that Daphne’s eyes followed him right back.

When she first saw Quinn, she approached him shyly, but she didn’t duck her head as she had before. She looked him straight in the eye and held out her hand. “Thank you,” she said simply. “I will always bless you.”

Quinn looked up at Cam, and his friend shrugged, the dark eyes twinkling as if to say “what did you expect?”

Quinn wanted to lay the gratitude where it belonged—with Meredith—but he knew that, for the moment, it was safer to hide the truth.

When Daphne had said her thanks, she retreated, still a little in awe of the white riverboat captain who had helped her. Quinn looked at Cam. “A walk?”

Cam nodded, and they moved swiftly through the neighborhood. The black man’s eyes fixed curiously on Quinn. There was something different about him, an ease that hadn’t been there before.

“You have an interestin’ week?”

“You could say so,” Quinn replied with the curious crooked grin that said little. “How would you like to be a witness to a wedding?”

“I would like that fine, Capt’n. Any particular lady in mind?”

The side of Quinn’s mouth lifted even higher. “Go to hell, Cam.”

There was a brief silence as they walked companionably. “What about you, Cam? And Daphne?”

The expression on Cam’s face was grim. “She’s already had too much fear in her life. I don’t want her worried about me too.”

“I thought about that…with Meredith,” Quinn said softly. “But, damn it, there’s something right about it. And there’s something right about you and Daphne too.”

“Maybe,” Cam said slowly.

“Meredith believes she’s located her sister in Murray, Kentucky, about a hard day’s ride from here. I’m going with her. We’re going to try to buy her, but if we can’t, I promised to help her sister escape…if she wishes.”

“When do we leave?” Cam’s face was impassive.

“You stay here with Daphne.”

“No, Capt’n,” Cam said simply. “You may need me.”

Quinn didn’t argue but merely nodded his head. It would do no good to try to dissuade Cam. Quinn knew that determined tone of voice. And Cam could be of help. Quinn had no idea what to expect of Meredith’s half sister, and perhaps Cam’s presence would be reassuring to her. He didn’t even want to think that the detective might have identified the wrong person. Meredith would be devastated. There was so much hope in her, so much anticipation.

“We’ll leave just after dawn tomorrow,” he said. “I have some things to do this afternoon: letters to give to Sophie, the purchase of horses. And the bank. We might need a great deal of cash.”

Cam raised an eyebrow questioningly.

“We can’t use our names, either of us. If this Evans does sell, it will have to be a cash transaction,” Quinn said. “Thank God, I have over ten thousand dollars in an account here and don’t have to wire Brett.”

Cam looked startled. “You taking it all?”

Quinn nodded.

“That’s a lot of money to carry.”

“I know,” Quinn said. “But it might take a lot, and if anything goes wrong, we need the money to escape.”

“Where?” Cam knew Quinn had avoided Canada, that there was a problem there, although he didn’t know exactly what.

“West. San Francisco. I’ve been thinking about it for some time. Even if things do go well with Meredith’s sister, we plan to go there in a few months. I don’t want her in any more danger. I would like you and Daphne to come with us.”

Cam looked stunned. The Underground Railroad had become part of his life. Every man and woman he helped, every slave he assisted to freedom, had helped him piece back together his own dignity. “The
Lucky Lady…”