Trouble at the Wedding (13 page)

He quickened his steps, and when he reached the bottom, he donned his shoes again, opened the door leading out of the stairwell, and emerged 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

H
e 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—”

She broke off, but she didn't have to say the rest. He knew what Billy John Harding had wanted. Hell, he wanted it, too, right now, right here.

“I was such a fool,” she murmured, and looked past him to stare dreamily into space. “I was thinking we'd get married. He said he was in love with me, too. 'Course, he wasn't. He had a hankering for the mud is all. Well,” she added, her expression hardening as she took a swallow of moonshine, “he got what he wanted.”

Christian heard the bitter tinge to her voice, and he wished he could sweeten it somehow, gloss over it, make it into something other than the sordid old tale he was beginning to fear it was. “How do you know he didn't love you?” he asked, and took the bottle from her, feeling in need of a drink. “Did he say so?”

“He didn't have to. Afterward, when I mentioned us getting married, he said . . .” She paused a long moment before she spoke. “He said, ‘Marry you? Why would I marry you? A white trash girl like you is only good for one thing, honey, and marriage isn't it.' He wasn't even done buttoning his pants when he said it.”

He grimaced at the crude, cruel brutality of it. “Bastard.”

With that, he took another drink, a bigger one, thinking a man who said something like that to a girl, especially after taking her virtue, ought to be horsewhipped. He rather wished the fellow was on board so he could administer that particular justice himself.

He watched her for a moment, studying the beautiful face that right now was as hard and smooth as a millpond in winter. “That must have hurt,” he finally said.

She shrugged as if it didn't matter, but he knew otherwise. Eight years later, it still mattered. “I wasn't the first girl he'd made a fool of, or the last,” she said. “But I think I'm the only one who was ever able to get him back.”

“Get him back?” He frowned, not quite understanding the vernacular. “What do you mean? You renewed your acquaintance with him? No,” he amended even before she shook her head, “you mean you took revenge?”

She nodded. “Three years ago.”

He tried to imagine what sort of vengeance a girl could mete out in exchange for such despicable treatment, but he couldn't even hazard a guess. “What did you do?”

She leaned back in her chair, giving him an unexpected, decidedly tipsy grin. “I bought the bank.”

Christian gave a shout of laughter, and she laughed with him. “Billy John had taken over the bank and the farm from his daddy, who had died,” she went on, “and he'd messed things up so bad that he had to sell the farm, and he had to bring in an investor to keep Harding Building and Loan from going under, too.”

“And you were that investor?”

She pointed to her chest. “Southern Belle Investment Group,” she said proudly. “You should have seen his face when I sashayed into the bank to sign the papers and take the controlling interest. He looked like he'd been poleaxed, bless his heart.”

Christian smiled, cheered a little by the knowledge that the cur had gotten some punishment, though less than he'd deserved. “What did you say to him?”

“ ‘I have some bad news, Billy John,' I said, sweet as pie. ‘I'd love to keep you on, us bein' such old friends and all, but I can't. I have to let you go. I'm sorry about this, I really am, but there's just too much scandal attached to your name.' ”

Christian's smile widened into a grin, for he could imagine the scene with ease. She was a good storyteller.

“ ‘Scandal?' he said. ‘What scandal?' I just gave him my best wide-eyed, innocent look . . .” She paused, suiting the action to the word. “ ‘Why, Billy John,' I said, ‘everybody knows you're the father of Velma Lewis's baby boy—now, don't deny it, darlin'. It's all over this town. And I just can't have someone working in my bank who'd have a child out of wedlock and refuse to marry the baby's mama, so I have to let you go.' ” She gave a sigh, shaking her head as if in apologetic regret. “ ‘A man like you is good for only one thing, honey, and managing a bank isn't it. Best if'n you go back to Velma and put yourself out to pasture. Oh, but . . . that's right. You don't own any pasture anymore, do you?' ”

Christian laughed. “By God, you know how to hit where it hurts.”

“I do,” she confessed, giving him a look of apology. “Probably best if'n you didn't get on my bad side,” she advised, and took the bottle from him to have another drink. “Funny thing, though,” she added, settling the bottle on her knees. “Going into the bank that day was supposed to be the perfect revenge, but it wasn't really as sweet as I thought it would be.”

“No?”

“No.” She paused and grinned again. “But I have to admit, it was still pretty sweet.”

“I'll bet it was.” He paused, considering. “It all worked out for the best in the end, then, if you ask me,” he said. Reaching out, he hooked the bottle with his finger and pulled it off her lap. “If Billy John had come up to snuff, if he'd married you, he'd have got his hands on all that money your father left you. And I can't think of anyone in the world who would deserve it less than a bastard like that. Much better that you never married him.”

She considered that as she took back the bottle and took another drink. “That's true. I never thought of it quite like that, but everything did work out for the best. After all, I'm going to be a countess now.”

He heard the hint of reverence in her voice and it angered him because he knew she thought being a countess was something special she didn't quite deserve. He could have said she was worth all the countesses he knew put together, but she probably wouldn't believe him. “Yes,” he said instead, taking a swallow of moonshine. “You'll be a countess. And Rumsford will get your money instead of Billy John.”

She scowled at him, not pleased at having that fact pointed out to her. “We should go,” she said abruptly, and stood up. The moment she did, she swayed a little on her feet and gave a moan. “Oh!”

He jumped up, catching the bottle as it slid from her fingers and grasping her arm with his free hand to keep her from falling. “Are you all right?”

She frowned, pressing a hand to her forehead. “I feel dizzy.”

“I'll bet you do,” he murmured, trying to accept that he'd lost. “Come. I shall walk you back up to A-deck, but we'll have to separate there. You can't be seen wandering corridors with me in the middle of the night, so you'll have to go on alone once we reach the stairs. Can you do that?”

“Of course I can!” She looked quite indignant. “I'm not drunk. I'm just a little dizzy, is all.”

“Of course,” he agreed, deciding not to tell her the truth. He was decidedly tipsy himself, and he was used to spirits. If he was tipsy, she was three sheets to the wind. “Let's go.”

She nodded and bent to retrieve her shoes as he reached behind her and grabbed his jacket. He climbed down from the Ford, and once she'd put her shoes back on, he helped her down. Together, they left the cargo bay and mounted the stairs, and when they reached the top, he opened the door for her to exit the stairwell. She did, but when she started to go the wrong way, he snagged her arm.

“Other way,” he said, and turned her in the proper direction. “Halfway down the corridor, turn left.”

He stepped back into the stairwell, closed the door, and waited until he thought she'd gotten far enough. Then he opened the door and looked down the corridor to find he'd been a bit optimistic in his calculations.

She wasn't quite halfway down the passage, and she was swaying as she walked, periodically bumping her right shoulder into the wall. Watching her, he grinned, knowing she was going to have one hell of a headache tomorrow. Maybe she'd be too sick to walk down the aisle. It wasn't likely to postpone the wedding, but he liked to cling to hope.

He watched her turn right, and he sighed. Taking a quick glance down the corridor to ensure no one was out for a midnight stroll, he raced after her and turned the corner just in time to see her making another turn.

Where on earth did she think she was going? “Annabel,” he hissed, but she didn't stop, and he continued running after her. When he turned the corner, he almost cannoned into her, for she had come to a stop and was staring into what seemed to be nothing more than the closed door of an ordinary stateroom. He skidded to a halt beside her.

“What's a Turkish bath really like?” she asked, turning her head to look at him.

He shook his head, his wits a bit addled by this confounded moonshine of hers. “I beg your pardon?”

Annabel pointed toward the door, where a placard read:
LADIES' TURKISH BATHS. GENTLEMEN FORBIDDEN.

She started to open the door, but he stopped her, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Annabel,” he whispered with a frantic glance around, “you can't do this.”

Laughing, she shrugged off his hand and opened the door. “Why not?” she countered over her shoulder, then pushed the door wide and went in.