A Wedding Story (11 page)

“
Now
you’re getting into a properly suspicious mindset.”

“So happy you approve.” She reached for the map, stopping when her fingers hovered a bare inch from it. “Is it all right if I touch it?”

“I—” The risk was minimal to nonexistent. She’d been in more danger taking a bite of the apple she’d had with supper. He’d spewed out that stuff about poisons and vipers just to tweak her—well, mostly he had. But for one absurd second, he nearly said no.

Doc had ordered him to take care of her. That did not mean he had to shield her from every single danger that existed. It was not even possible.

But he wanted to, which did not bode well for the rest of their travels, unless he went back to his original plan and locked her up, safe and sound and heavily guarded.

“Sure,” he said quickly. “Here you go.” He handed the handdrawn map. She smoothed it out against her thigh—
lucky paper
—and held it up where they both could study it together.

“It would have been somewhat easier to read if you hadn’t beaten it to a pulp first.”

“And here I thought you liked a challenge.”

A jagged line bisected the paper. The right side was dense with figures—triangles, squares, swirls, squiggles. The left was nearly bare, sprinkled with a few wavy lines.

“A few letters would have been helpful, wouldn’t it?” Kate asked.

“Now you’re the expert on treasure maps, are you?”

“I’m just full of hidden talents.” She bent her head, giving him a clean view of the pure line of her cheek, a small, soft slope of neck that seemed the loveliest thing he’d ever seen.

He forced his gaze back to the suddenly uninteresting map. “Try turning it around.”

“Hmm?”

“It’s upside down.”

“How do you know?” He took the map, spun it, and placed it back in her hands. He pointed at a small geometric figure that now resided in the upper right corner. “See? A compass dial.”

“Hmm.” She leaned closer, squinting. She dug into her skirt pocket. “Look.” She held the stone shard next to the map. The tiny triangular carving perfectly matched one of the compass arrows.

“Well, that’s one point in the map’s favor.”

She looked up at him, eyes alight with interest, mouth soft. For a moment he could think of nothing else; it would be so easy to kiss her, to drop his mouth to hers and drink her in. And it was the very ease of it that warned him off;
easy
was so often a trap, a seemingly simple step that started one down a treacherous slope that was almost impossible to crawl back up.

“Do you think it’s a fake?” she asked him.

“Oh, hell, I don’t know.” He was tired of thinking about it. Tired of remembering all the reasons he couldn’t just kiss her. “We didn’t
have
one to start out with, so there doesn’t seem a whole lot of advantage to giving us a fake one. And the arrow does match. Nobody’s shown much attention to fine detail thus far.”

“Including us.”

He nodded. “Including us.”

“But why would that boy bother to bring us a map? There’s no advantage in it. We’re his competition.”

“Maybe he
really
likes you.” He shrugged. “Hey, it could be a good move for you. You said you’ve limited skills, and you’re accustomed to luxury.” He wiggled his hips. “Kate Goodale, harem girl.”

She tried to scowl at him but ended up smiling. There was no way to remain angry at the man, Kate realized, when he looked so ridiculous swiveling his hips like a drunken dancing girl. The rare, light moments like this were the only reason she hadn’t retreated to Philadelphia in failure already. But where was the line between failure and good sense, between admirable determination and throwing good energy after bad?

“Unless, now that you’ve gotten a taste of the simpler life,” he went on, “you’ve decided to forswear luxury.”

“Not in a million years. And the next time I get an idea,
any
idea, that requires me sleeping anywhere other than the biggest featherbed in existence, I don’t care where you are. It’s going to be your solemn duty to come and lock me up rather than allow such insanity.”

“I promise,” he said, sober as a knight taking his vow. But his eyes were lit with mischief and pleasure.

No wonder the foolish, lonesome girl she’d been had succumbed to his charms the instant she’d met him. She should consider herself lucky it hadn’t gone any further than it had; the man, when he forgot he was supposed to be angry and suspicious of her, was pretty darn irresistible. And she’d lived with enough shame about that incident as it was, spending much of her marriage attempting to atone for the indiscretion the doctor had never known existed.

“So it’s likely a fake, then.” She didn’t want to believe it, which surprised her. Her hips hurt from sleeping on the ground and her skin was already withering from all this fresh air. Her hair needed a trim, and her wardrobe would never be the same. She would have thought she’d have lunged on any excuse to call the whole thing off.

But she didn’t want to give up.

“Oh, there could be reasons. There could be a thousand things going on beneath the surface that we have no idea about.” He ran a finger down the wavering line that zagged through the center of the page. “He’s the only one of the competitors who’s acting entirely alone. He might have just decided it’d be useful to have us owe him a favor.”

“Hmm.” The bottom of the stairway was only a few feet away. She looked up at the spiral, grew dizzy just at the memory. If she went home right now, she’d never have to worry about getting more than a floor’s height above ground again.

But the truth was, there was no home for her to go to anymore. Philadelphia was empty for her. The house had never been hers, and her sisters were settled—and if not as well-settled as she would have liked, her interference would only make them less so.

“So are we using it?” she asked, and didn’t even know what answer she hoped for.

The torchlight was starting to fade, making the small, indistinct drawings on the map nearly impossible to read. Jim carefully rolled it back up and tucked it under his elbow. “You wanted to be the boss. What do you think?”

“I say we give it a try.”

Fitz Rafferty, managing editor of the
Daily Sentinel
, who had not achieved his position by mincing words, hurled today’s copy of his newspaper on his cluttered desk, clamped down on his ever-present cigar, and snarled at his city editor. “It’s boring as hell!”

Irvin Webb waved a hand in front of his face and choked back the cough that plagued him whenever he entered his superior’s office. Rafferty spewed out as much smoke as the Trenton Iron Works. “I thought it was an excellent summary. Vivid, succinct—”

“And nothing happened!” The tip of his cigar glowed red as he sucked in, matching the furious gleam in Rafferty’s eyes. “What’s that damned Hobson doing out there? I didn’t assign him to write a travelogue.”

“He’s our best reporter,” Irvin said soothingly. Half his job was editing; the other half was keeping Rafferty from killing one of his reporters during one of his rampages. “Give him time.”

“Do you know how much we’re spending on this stupid contest?” Rumor had it Fitz Rafferty was approaching fifty. From the neck up, he looked twenty years older, jowels and bags drooping like a basset hound’s. From the neck down, he’d somehow held on to the powerful build that had made him the best rower Yale ever had.

Of course Webb did, to the precise penny. He also knew exactly how many papers they’d sold every single day since it began. “It’s not a stupid contest,” he said, because sooner or later Rafferty would remember it was his own idea. “And I also know circulation is up nearly seventy percent. Pulitzer and Hearst must be on the verge of hurling themselves in the East River.”

Rafferty chuckled, partly mollified. “Now, there’s something I’d pay to see.”

“If this keeps up, maybe you will.”

Unfortunately,
mollified
and
Fitz Rafferty
never went together for long. He jammed the tip of his cigar into a glazed brown bowl overflowing with butts—hadn’t been a good morning, Webb judged. “Not if we don’t come up with a better story than this. Gawd almighty, all they’re doing is stumbling around in the woods! You’d think somebody would have fallen off a cliff by now.”

“What a shame they’re all still alive,” Irvin said dryly.

“Yeah, I—” He stopped and jabbed his finger at Webb’s chest. “Now, don’t go all soft-hearted on me. We don’t make people do stupid things, we just report it. We’ve got a newspaper to keep running, for Christ’s sake. You know how many people’d be on the streets if we went out of business?”

Webb wondered how many things Fitz had rationalized over the years with that particular line of reasoning. But as he would be one of the first on the street, and he’d been there once and didn’t like it much, he kept his mouth shut.

As he did at least three dozen times a day, Rafferty stalked over to the door to his office, which he kept open at all times unless he was closeted with someone who’d come directly from the mysterious, powerful owner of the
Sentinel,
Joseph Kane. Fitz liked to stand there and look out over his domain, a dozen reporters hunched over typewriters and cigarettes, the racket of clattering keys increasing to a furious level every time he appeared in the doorway.

“Make the clues easier,” he ordered.

“Easier? Wouldn’t it be better to make it harder, have people dropping out?”

“No.” He tucked his thumbs in his waistband and rocked back onto his heels. “The more people out there, the more potential stories for Hobson to dig up. I want them all there, and in the same place. Tripping over each other, getting in each other’s way, talking to Charlie about whoever pissed ’em off the most.”

“Got it. Easier.” Of course they were going to throw out all the rest of the clues that he, Irvin, had sweated over for a full month. He’d been so pleased with his own cleverness. Now no one would ever get to admire it. Wasn’t that always how it went?

“Yeah. Oh, and Webb?” Rafferty glowered over his substantial shoulder, spearing Irvin with the glare that could still, after ten years of working together, freeze him in place.

“Yes, Mr. Rafferty?”

“You tell that overpaid ass Hobson that he’d better start coming up with something better, or he’s not going to be overpaid much longer.”

According to the map that Jim bought the morning they left the Cuckoo’s Nest, there were five formations on the coast of the Atlantic between Massachusetts and Nova Scotia that closely matched their hand-drawn map. They spent the next two weeks checking out the first three, each a perfect set of three tiny islands about a hundred yards from the shoreline, a thin spear of a peninsula that jutted toward the rocky islands like an arrow pointing the way.

After the second day, Kate had stopped bothering to ask where Jim dug up the tiny rowboats he’d used to ferry them to the islands, any more than she asked where he’d come up with the provisions for their daily meals and the extra blankets they’d needed once they crossed into New Hampshire. She was pretty sure she didn’t really want to know. And truly, the handsome bulge of his arms as he pulled on the oars was the only bright spot in the entire sorry trip.

Her hopes had soared at the third stop, where the most seaward island held a crumbling redbrick lighthouse. There wasn’t much left to the stairs, and Kate felt only a twinge of embarrassment at staying safely on the ground while Jim fashioned a complicated rope system to drag himself to the top, a twinge that couldn’t compete with her utter relief at keeping her feet safely on the damp rock floor. But it turned out to be nearly—but just
nearly
—as hard to wait, worrying over Jim’s safety, wondering what he’d found. When he’d come back down empty-handed, her disappointment had been overwhelmed by her relief at seeing him safe and sound.

They’d occasionally run into the other competitors. The son of the Amir appeared regularly, often enough that if she didn’t see him for two days she’d begin to worry, something that annoyed Jim to no end—but Jim was pretty easily annoyed these days. The boy never said anything, never even came closer than twenty feet or so, just regarded them with those dark eyes for five or ten silent minutes before lifting his hand in salute and melting into the forest.

They’d run into Count Nobile twice—not at all by accident, Jim had maintained. The count had invited them to dinner—all right, he’d invited
her,
tagging Jim on the end of the invitation only after Kate had signaled it with her eyes as emphatically as she could. He’d promised some lovely Italian specialties that she couldn’t decipher but just the sound of had her mouth watering. Jim had turned down the invitation before Kate had a chance to accept.

Major Huddleston-Snell they’d seen only once. They’d passed on the road, the major and Jim swinging wide on either side so as not to pass any closer to one another than absolutely necessary. And then as soon as the major and his party disappeared, Jim dove for the map, poring over it for a good hour to try and discern why the major could possibly be going in the opposite direction.

Baron von Hussman, it was rumored—Kate had lured this tidbit from the count, before Jim dragged her away with some ridiculous excuse about needing her advice on the next day’s route—was so far ahead of the rest of the competitors that they could ride all night and never stumble into him.

On two days it had been so cold that Kate had been reduced to wrapping a blanket around her shoulders since, as she reminded Jim at every opportunity, he had not allowed her enough room to pack her thick woolen cape, a complaint which eventually caused him to throw two of his own shirts at her and tell her she could either wear them or stuff them in her trap. She chose to wear them.

They’d had heat. They’d had rain. On one memorable morning they’d been pelted with hail as large as crabapples. Kate had been closer to shelter and had reached the overhanging ledge first, enjoying, in a way that was probably unkind but nevertheless undeniably satisfying, the ice balls careening off Jim’s hard, dreadfully grouchy head.

And it was a grouchy head. Extremely so, and getting more so by the day. Kate could only marvel at how wrong she’d been about him, that the wistful, heroic image of him she’d built on one enchanted evening, a few stray letters, and every word he’d ever published, could be so utterly mistaken.

He was not charming. Perhaps he could be, if he set himself to it, but he was certainly not trying it out on her. He was not kind and thoughtful. He might have been articulate, but who could tell? He hardly ever spoke to her anymore, except to bark orders.

Oh yes, he was big and handsome and competent. Fascinating to watch as he pitched a makeshift tent or dressed a rabbit in the blink of an eye. He made excellent coffee, quick fires, and she could happily occupy the better part of a day admiring his seat on a horse.

Or off one, she admitted in honest moments.

At the very beginning of this trip, she’d had some concerns about the two of them on the road together. She’d considered that perhaps her memories, her newly unmarried state, and her sisters’ ridiculous urgings, not to mention his admittedly splendid physical presence, might overwhelm her good sense. But Jim’s true nasty nature was proving a rather effective deterrent. Not to her fantasies—that couldn’t be helped—but at least she was seldom tempted to act on them.

Today, it was raining. They slogged along on a narrow, pebbled road about fifty miles into Maine. The sky was gray, the sea pewter. It wasn’t raining particularly hard; if it had been, even Jim would have had to call a halt and start looking for shelter. No, it sputtered and spurted and spit at her, sometimes pausing just long enough to give her hope, but never long enough to let her drawers dry out.

The wind gusted higher, blowing a spray of mist into her face, and she bent her head, trusting her horse to find its way. Considering how much time they’d spent plodding along behind Jim and Chief, Kate figured her mare could manage without much guidance. She shifted her hands on the reins, frowning at the condition of her broken nails.

It was utterly amazing how quickly, after a lifetime of diligently taking good care of oneself, a woman could go to hell. After so much time in the open air, she couldn’t seem to slather on enough cream to keep her complexion smooth, and her mother would have worn a mask rather than appear in public with this much color in her skin. The humidity of the seacoast had expanded her hair to the volume and texture of a small bush, and her clothes…she absolutely refused even to think about her clothes. She’d settled on ruining one set completely, preserving the rest, but that strategy was going to fail in the near future when her current blouse and skirt shredded the next time she washed them, for Kate was fairly certain it was only the layer of grime that was holding them together right now.

Because conversation was out of the question—Jim ignored her a good portion of the day, which was a novel experience for her—Kate occupied herself with mentally composing her next letter to her sisters. No more telegrams; her current mood required more than a bare minimum of words.

She could not believe they’d prodded her into this foolishness with all their mumblings about “freedom” and “adventure.” Lord only knew what disasters would ensue if she gave serious consideration to Emily’s instruction that Kate undertake one grand, passionate affair.

And it was much easier to be angry with her sisters than miss them.

“What did you say?”

Kate looked up. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You were muttering under your breath. Damn near hissing, from the sound of it.” He pulled his horse to a stop, waiting until she came up alongside him before urging Chief forward. “Cursing me, were you?”

“I was not.” It really was most ridiculously unfair. She knew she must look like a drowned rat, hair snarled, nose dripping. He, on the other hand, had never looked better. He’d run his hands through his hair, slicking it back from his forehead, throwing the clean lines of his face into sharp relief. The light rain glistened on the high rise of his cheekbones, glittered in his thick dark eyelashes. His dampened shirt clung to every plane and swell of his body and gave her overactive imagination far too much to dwell on. If he looked like that in clothes, he had to be downright spectacular naked. “Not that you don’t deserve it,” she said.