CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

 

It was just plain stupid, that’s what it was. Arguing, fighting, exchanging insults and accusations like a couple of schoolchildren caught hiding toads in the schoolmarm’s desk. Not nearly as harmless, though. Not nearly as harmless.

Amanda twisted to find a more comfortable position for her legs and realized she was still in the parlor. The room was pitch black and had been for some time, to judge by the lack of any glow at all from the fireplace. She was dressed in her nightgown and robe, so groggy she couldn’t remember when she had gone to her room or how she had gotten there. Ryan had needed her help, but his pain was more physical than mental. Mercy had seen to Sarah and Verity while Obediah had put William to bed and, on one of the few occasions Amanda could recall, had then locked and bolted the doors before muttering his way to his own rooms out back of the kitchen.

Amanda had gone to her room but she hadn’t been able to close her eyes, much less sleep. She had paced and replayed the confrontations over and over in her mind, between her and Ryan, Ryan and Michael, Michael and her, Alisha and her. Even Forrest Wainright’s ugly face had intruded on her thoughts, laughing at her ignorance over Michael’s ownership of the Mississippi Queen, laughing at Alisha’s predicament, laughing at her own gullibility and her fatal penchant for assuming responsibility for everyone else’s mistakes.

Michael denied having been with Alisha, denied the child was his, and, with hindsight’s perfect clarity of vision, Amanda knew it was the truth. How she ever could have believed Alisha’s lies, she did not know.

At the same time, Michael had obviously believed Alisha’s half truths about Verity. She had told him Caleb wasn’t the father and he had assumed—what? That Amanda had taken a lover? Had played the role of a whore to survive the war? In hindsight again, it would suit Alisha’s twisted mind to impose her own situation over Amanda’s, to make the lie more convincing for the sake of it being half true.

Bitter words, cruel accusations. She had sent him away and he had not balked. He had not come back either, in spite of the many trips she paced to and from the windows willing him to come riding up the drive. It was what had brought her back down to the parlor, she recalled now—the imagined sound of hoofbeats on the hard-packed earth. And it had been the disappointment that had left her slumped on the settee, having checked the view from every window, every vantage.

She couldn’t blame him if he never came back, if he never wanted to see her again. No doubt he would be only too happy to see the end of her and her entire troublesome family, for he had surely had enough strife from all of them.

She loved him, she knew that now. Completely, utterly and absolutely. Come first light, she would go to him—crawl to him, if need be—and try to make him understand. If he left Natchez hating her, she would not be able to bear it. If he left with the image of her prone at his feet, it would at least be pity, not anger he carried with him in his heart.

She drew her wrapper closer around her shoulders and started to rise. A faint disturbance —a creaking floorboard and a dull rattle from the other side of the parlor door—intruded on her thoughts and she sighed, wondering who else was awake at this ungodly hour. Mercy, probably. Making hot milk for herself … unless there was a problem with Verity?

Wider awake and feeling even more guilt for having neglected her daughter for her own troubles, Amanda padded noiselessly across the darkened room and went through the service door to the kitchen. Expecting to see a light and a shining black face bent over the stove, she was stalled temporarily by the impenetrable darkness. The door whined softly as she pushed it wider, but there was no relief to the heavy shadows. The lamp that was normally kept burning by the stove had been extinguished and the kitchen fire long since banked for the night. The sliver of moon that had helped alleviate some of the gloom in the parlor was blocked by the huge magnolia outside the window, and what little light did manage to filter through was barely enough to vary the shades of black outlining the furniture and fittings.

Amanda huffed a small sigh and turned to go. This time it was not so much what she heard or saw that stopped her at the threshold. It was more of a smell. Foreign, filthy, and salty, it assaulted her senses as surely as a blast of cold air, prompting the same results in a flush of gooseflesh that crawled up her arms.

“Mercy? Obediah?” She heard the creak again and saw the back door swing open on its hinges, pushed by a gusting breeze.

“For pity’s sake,” she muttered, her heart in her throat, her blood pounding in her temples. Just the door. Just the wind.

She was halfway across the kitchen when she remembered that Obediah had bolted all the doors. Too late she saw the shadows beside her shift and a pair of hands snaked out of the darkness, one clamping over her mouth, the other curling around her waist and dragging her back to make rough contact against the wall.

“Not a sound, lady,” a voice hissed in her ear. “Not one sound or so help me”—the intruder wedged his bony body against her and slid the cold press of a knife blade alongside her neck—“it’ll be the last one you make. Understand me?”

Amanda nodded as best she could. The fingers that were mashed over her mouth remained sincere in their threat for another few seconds before relenting, bit by bit, and allowing blood to flow into the bruised flesh again.

“Wh-who are you? What do you want?”

“Aww, you forget me already? I’m hurt, Miz Tarrington. Real hurt.”

Amanda’s gasp and instinctive cry brought Ned Sims’s hand crushing back over her mouth again.

“I told you not to do that,” he said, snarling. “Not unless you like the taste of steel down the back of your throat.”

He nudged the tip of the knife into the underside of her chin for emphasis, and she felt the faint pop and the resultant trickle of warm blood shiver down her neck.

“We’ll try it again—real slow this time,” he said, easing the pressure from his fingers. They moved from her mouth to the nape of her neck, twining around a fistful of her hair.

“What do you want?” she asked. “What are you doing here?”

“I come to see you, Miz Tarrington. Real obliging of you to save me the grief of having to search every room, though I must admit”—his body sidled closer and his face drew near enough for her to smell the decay of his teeth—“fetching you out of your bed might have been worth the trouble.”

“What are you doing here?” she repeated tersely. “You’re supposed to be on your way to New Orleans.”

“That’s what everyone thinks, ain’t it? Truth is, I never went farther than the Swamp. And why should I? Alls I did was try to teach the little woman a lesson in obeying her man.”

“You almost killed Sally.”

“If I’d wanted to kill her, the bitch’d be dead.”

Amanda swallowed hard and wondered if anyone had heard them yet. Mercy and Obediah slept in a room behind the pantry, the width of a wall away.

“You … still haven’t told me why you’re here.”

“Someone’s waiting outside to see you. Why don’t I let him tell you?”

“Someone’s outside?” For one brief, irrational moment, Amanda thought it might be Michael. But then she felt the knife against her throat and the oily grip of Sims’s hand in her hair and she knew it was anyone but Michael.

“Someone who’s anxious to know where his money is at.”

A small bubble of panic burst in Amanda’s throat. “Wainright? He’s here?”

“You say that like you never expected he would find you. Lucky for him, though, he sent me after you last night when you come running off that ship all hell bent for leather. Damn near lost you a time or two, I might admit, but I managed to follow you and your lover boy.” He grunted and lowered his voice to an intimate drawl. “Your husband know about him? Is that why you and he don’t share that big old bed of his … cuz you got yourself some Reb doin's on the side?”

Amanda angled her face away from the stench of his breath. He only chuckled dryly and leaned closer, dragging his tongue slowly up the curve of her throat, licking the dark stripe of blood as he did so. “Maybe, when your business with Mr. Wainright is settled, you an’ me …?”

Amanda wrenched to one side and brought her knee up hard into the juncture of his thighs. He was able to block enough of the blow by sacrificing his grip on the knife, saving all but a harsh grunt’s worth of pain. The knife clattered onto the floor and he jerked her back against the wall; he struck out once, twice with the flat of his hand, the slaps catching her fully on the face and snapping her head side to side.

“Yeah,” he promised furiously, slapping her again. “You and me, Miz Tarrington. I’ll teach you the same lesson Sal learned.”

Amanda’s cheeks stung from the pain, her scalp felt as if it were being torn away by the brutal grip he held on her hair. He twisted his fist even tighter and hissed a command for her to move toward the door, shoving her with enough force, she stumbled into the side of the broad-topped cast iron stove. Her hands scraped across the still-warm surface as she regained her balance, but with another shove and another snarled curse, she was propelled out the door and into the chill night air.

Sims half dragged her around the side of the house to where the shadows were inkiest beneath the umbrella-like branches of the huge oak. She stumbled again and lost a slipper, but the shock of feeling cold earth and sharp pebbles gouging into the bare sole of her foot was nothing compared to the shock of seeing E. Forrest Wainright emerge into the mottled moonlight.

“Ah. So you found her.”

“More like she found me,” Ned said, giving her a final shove forward. “Good thing too, since every other goddamn board in that house squeaks and squeals.”

“Southern workmanship is as laughable as their fighting skills,” Wainright remarked. “Amanda … you’ve been a tricky little minx to keep track of. One would almost think you were deliberately trying to avoid me.”

“What do you want? You have your money, what more do you want?”

“You have my money,” he corrected her wanly. “When I have it, I can promise you I won’t want anything—for a while, anyway.”

Amanda’s jaw still burned from the slaps and her head felt as if it needed a good shake to clear it. “What do you mean, I have it? I don’t have it.”

Wainright’s pause was palpable. “The word is all over town that Montana Rose walked away from the Mississippi Queen with over seventy thousand dollars in her clutches.”

“Yes, and I gave fifty of it to Joshua Brice.”

“You gave my money to someone else?”

“I gave it to Josh and he said he would take it to you in the morning.”

“Which morning—yesterday, today, tomorrow? And who the devil is Joshua Brice?”

“Probably lover boy,” Ned Sims provided helpfully. “The one who was waiting for her on the docks when she come off the boat.”

“He isn’t my lover,” Amanda insisted. “And he wasn’t waiting for me, he was—”

She stopped suddenly, the echo of her own words ringing in her hears. Josh had been waiting for her. He had said Alisha had sent him to look out for her, but Alisha had never looked out for anyone other than herself her whole life long. And now Alisha was missing. And Josh had failed to deliver the money!

The baron seems to think his wife has run away …

The thought screamed through her mind, drawing her to the inevitable conclusion even though she choked back a gasp denying it. It wasn’t possible! It just wasn’t. Josh had been sincere when he’d promised to help her. He was her friend. He was Caleb’s closest friend! Alisha was another matter. She had only married the baron for his money, but by her own admission, the financial rewards had not lived up to her expectations. Fifty thousand dollars was a lot of money. Was it enough for Alisha to convince Josh to take her away from Natchez?

“By your poignant silence,” Wainright hissed, “may we assume it is only just occurring to you that you may have been double-crossed?”

“He … promised he would bring it to you,” she whispered, lacking anything else to say.

“Stupid bitch,” Sims snorted contemptuously. “Or else real smart to claim someone else took the money and ran away.”

Wainright glared at him then advanced on Amanda. “If I find out this is true—”

“Why would I do such a thing?” she demanded. “I was the one being blackmailed, remember.”

“You were the one protecting her husband’s reputation. What if you found out it didn’t need protecting? What if you found out your sister was lying, that she was already several months’ pregnant when she married?”

Amanda closed her eyes, relief and guilt washing through her in alternating waves. “But I’m still here. If Josh and I were trying to swindle you out of the money, wouldn’t I have already left town?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. At any rate, you still owe me fifty thousand dollars. And for the trouble you've caused, we'll make it the full seventy.”

“I don’t have it,” she said flatly. “You know I don’t.”

“No, and yet I take heart in knowing the loss your husband took Saturday night will have set him back considerably. May I presume he told you who owns the Queen?”

“He told me.”

“Did he also tell you his grand plantation, his horses, his other little extravagances are all dependant upon the profits he reaps from his floating casino? I confess, I was modestly surprised myself when Captain Turnbull told me how much cash spins around with each turn of the paddle wheels.”

“You spoke to Captain Turnbull?”

“As I told you—I believe in knowing everything there is to know about one’s adversaries. When I saw you putting your heads together, I thought it prudent to know what about. Passage downriver for you and the child, was it not? To be arranged with the captain’s discretion and full protection?”

“Ben wouldn’t have told you that,” she whispered. “Not voluntarily.”

“Between Mr. Sims and myself, we managed to persuade him to cooperate.”

Amanda stared at Ned Sims and felt the cool wetness of blood on her neck. “You killed him. You killed Captain Turnbull.”

Sims shrugged. “He needed a lot of persuading.”

Amanda looked at Wainright again. “You won’t get away with it.”

“Ah, but it seems I already have. It’s Montana Rose the authorities are searching for, not me. And whether or not you get away with it,” he reached out and plucked a thick, silvery coil of hair off her shoulder, weighing it thoughtfully in his fingers, “will depend entirely on your husband’s willingness to cooperate.”

“He won’t bow to your threats,” she said passionately. “Not now, not ever.”

“He will if he ever wants to see you again. Alive.”

Amanda felt Sims coming up behind her and she tried to run, to dart away before he trapped her. But Sims and Wainright both anticipated the move and blocked her. She opened her mouth to scream, but something solid and metallic slammed across the back of her skull, causing her mind to explode with the pain and her body to slump forward into Wainright’s waiting arms.

Through the agony and the final, fading starbursts, she heard a far-off voice commanding Sims to take her to where their horses were tethered.

Then she knew nothing.

 

Michael Tarrington jerked awake. He was dressed in shirt, breeches, and boots, and was sprawled across the bed. The sharp crack of a gunshot had traveled from the front hall up the stairs, along the corridor, and into his room without having lost a degree of volume or urgency. The pounding he had taken from Ryan’s fists started a chorus of drumbeats hammering inside his head; spots danced in front of his eyes, clouding his vision and hampering his movements as he stumbled from the bed to the door.

Brian Foley was coming down the hall at a dead run.

“The bastard is here, sir, bold as brass. Ned Sims. He shot his way into the front hall and he’s using Flora as a shield. Says he has a message for you. Said to give you this and you’d understand.”

Michael looked down into a hand trembling with rage and recognized Amanda’s gold locket.

“Where is he?” he demanded, snatching the locket out of Foley’s palm.

“Still in the foyer.”

“He came alone?”

“As far as I could see, yes sir.”

Michael delayed only long enough to fetch his Remington and tuck it into his waistband at the small of his back.

Ned Sims had his back against the wall and an arm around the portly housekeeper supporting her half-conscious body. There was blood at her temple and a pistol was pressed into her ribs. Her face was twisted with the pain, and her eyes rolled as she fought to keep them open and focused.

“Let her go, Sims,” Michael commanded. “You have my word no one will touch you.”

“No dice, Tarrington. She stays put until our business is done.”

Michael held up the locket. “Where did you get this?”

“From the neck of your purdy little Rebel wife, of course. Chain’s broke cuz she put up a bit of a fight, but she’s real quiet now. Learned her lesson, you might say.”

Michael’s fingers squeezed around the locket again, his knuckles glowing white. “Where is she?”

“We got her.”

“Who is ‘we’?”

“Mr. Wainright. And me.”

The steely gray eyes turned as cold and cutting as the edge of an executioner’s blade. “Where?”

“That’s what you’re going to have to pay to find out.”

“How much?” Michael asked through the solid ridge of his jaw.

“An even hundred thousand.”

“He’s getting a little greedy, isn’t he?” Michael spat. “Wasn’t he satisfied with what my wife already paid him?”

“Mr. Wainright said to tell you he’ll get a lot more than cash out of your wife if you don’t come across. Uh-uh—” This last admonition was directed at Foley, who had begun to creep up on him from the side. Sims thrust the nose of his gun deeper into Flora’s ribs, drawing forth a gasp and a groan of pain. “Don’t try it or the old witch buys it. And you got till midnight tonight,” he said, addressing Michael again. “Come up with the cash or you ain’t never going to see your wife again … not all in one piece, at any rate.”

“I need more time. I can’t possibly raise that much cash in one day.”

“Midnight. Or you can start buying her back a finger at a time.”

He grinned and held up his own mutilated hand, wagging the two intact fingers and the three misshapen stubs. Flora, finding no restraint around her waist, brought her arm up and drove her elbow back with a vicious stab, ramming both the gun and the hand that held it The pistol exploded between them and Sims jackknifed to one side, the impact of the bullet sending him careening into a tall wooden hat stand.

Michael sprang into motion instantly, pushing Flora out of the way and knocking the smoking gun out of Sims’s hand. He drew his Remington and thrust it up under Sims’s jaw, ignoring the hiss of agony that bubbled from between the compressed lips as he hauled him upright. Sims’s shirt and jacket were soaking rapidly with blood. The strength seemed to be melting out of his legs and his hands, searching for support, clawed around Michael’s forearm.

“Bloody bitch … look what she’s done!”

“If you don’t tell me what I want to know, I’ll let her finish the job with a carving knife.”

Sims shuddered through a wave of pain and swore.

“Where is my wife?”

“Where you’ll never find her.”

Michael slammed him hard against the wall. “Where am I supposed to meet Wainright?”

“In hell, you bastard.” Ned grinned through pink and bloodied teeth. “You can all meet him in hell.”

Flora barreled forward with a ripe Scottish oath and shoved her fist into Sims’s groin. She clamped her fingers around his crotch and twisted, tightening and twisting more as he jerked up on his tiptoes and started to howl with the pain.

“Tell Mr. Michael what he wants to know, ye sod-brained, foul-mouthed piece o’ shit, or I’ll tear off yer pride an’ joy an’ stuff it down yer scrawny throat backward!”

“The boat. The riverboat! The Mississippi Queen! He’ll have her there at midnight!”

Flora gave an extra twist for good measure before she released him. Sims’s eyes rolled into the back of his head and he started to slump down onto the floor, blood and air frothing out of the gaping lips. Michael let him go, knowing it was too late to do anything to help him, even if he had been inclined to do so.

It was Foley who bent over the body and straightened a moment later, shaking his head.

“He won’t be able to tell us anything more, sir. He’s dead.”

“An’ good riddance to him as well,” Flora declared, balling her hands into fists. “Good thing I done it with ma own hands too. For ma Sally. Ach, but—” The harsher reality hit her and she stared up at Michael in horror. “What will the other bastard do when this one doesn't come back?”

“My guess is, Wainright isn’t expecting him to come back. He must have known something like this would happen if he sent Sims here with the ransom demand. I doubt he wants too many witnesses or too many hands to share in the profits.”

“But the Queen, sir. Isn’t that rather stupid of him to arrange the meeting there?” Foley asked.

Michael considered it a moment while he turned Amanda’s locket over and over in his hand. “No. It’s actually quite brilliant. Devious, but brilliant. The Mississippi Queen is moored by herself at the end of the jetty and she’s still closed down. Anyone coming within fifty yards of her will stand out like a beacon. Moreover, it would be the last place I or anyone else would think to look for her.”

The irony did not escape him either, for what better place to end it all than where it began?

“Have Diablo saddled and ready for me in ten minutes,” he ordered softly.

“What are ye aimin’ to do?” Flora asked tremulously.

“I’m aiming to bring my wife back home, Flora. Where she belongs. And by the way”—he glanced down at Sims’s slumped body and winced—“remind me never to get on your bad side.”

 

Ryan Courtland could scarcely believe his ears when he was told Michael Tarrington was waiting on the front porch, demanding to see him. He could scarcely believe his eyes either when he slammed through the door and sure enough, the Yankee was standing there, looking as wild as if the wind had blown him all the way from Briar Glen.

“Wainright has Amanda,” Michael said without preamble.

“My sister is upstairs sleeping, Tarrington. If this is another one of your tricks …”

Michael held out the gold locket.

The men took the stairs two at a time and burst through the door to Amanda’s bedroom without bothering to knock. The bed was rumpled but empty.

It took five minutes longer to search the house room by room before they arrived in the kitchen. Mercy and Obediah were there, frowning over their own discoveries—the ivory-handled knife that had been found under the table, the single satin slipper that had been found outside on the pathway.

“He’ll kill her,” Ryan said, white-lipped. “He won’t let her go, no matter how many times over you meet the ransom.”

“I know. But he wants his revenge and he’ll wait long enough to see me squirm.”

“Do you have the cash to pay him?”

“No. But I have the deed to Briar Glen and the papers for the Mississippi Queen. It’s everything I own, so I think he’ll be satisfied.”

Ryan took a long, measured breath and nodded. “How many men do you think he’ll have with him tonight?”

“No more than two or three. The river rats he usually employs to do his dirty work couldn’t be trusted not to slit his throat and take the money themselves.”

“We can have ten times that many on the dock by midnight.”

Michael disagreed. “If we show up in strength, all Wainright would have to do is wrap a length of chain around her ankles and slip Mandy into the river and she’d be gone in the current without a trace. Without a body, we’d be hard-pressed to prove anything against him.”

“You have a pretty cold-blooded way of putting it, Tarrington.”

“Murder is a pretty cold-blooded business.”

“Then what do you suggest we do?”

“We let him think I am alone and doing precisely what he wants me to do.”

“Sir.” Foley ventured to make a suggestion. “This Wainright person does not know me. I could go down to the docks in advance and keep the Queen under close watch. We would at least be able to ascertain exactly how many men we were up against and how we might best be able to outmaneuver them.”

Michael nodded, but Ryan shook his head.

“What if he just decides to kill you the minute he sees you?”

Michael studied Ryan’s face—a face with enough likeness to Amanda’s that his heart ached. “I guess it’s a chance I’ll have to take. I intend to get my wife back,” he added quietly. “Foley and I can do it without your help if need be, but I’d like to have you with me.”

Ryan returned the penetrating stare. His jaw was discolored and throbbing, the cut over his eye was an ugly, scabbed lump. His ribs, belly, and arms were black and blue, and his stomach was twisted with fear for Amanda’s safety.

Tarrington was in no better shape.

“Alisha was lying, wasn’t she.”

“Yes.”

“What about Amanda?”

“What about her?”

“You say you want her back, but what if she doesn’t want to go back?”

Michael looked down and studied his hands a moment, turning the locket over and over in his fingers. “Then you’re going to be seeing a lot of me around here, because I don’t intend to give her up without a hell of a fight.”