Fool for Love (Montana Romance) (6 page)

“Ooo!  Look, mummy!” he said, pointing.

“Christopher, stop!” his mother hissed.  She stepped out of line to yank him away from the railing.

“But they’re loading-”

“I don’t care what they’re doing.  They’re a bunch of filthy beggars!”

Eric exchanged a glance with Amelia, raising his eyebrow.

“But,” Christopher protested as he was dragged back in line.

“Behave!” his mother demanded.

Amelia felt the sting of those words as though they were directed to her.  She met young Christopher’s pout with a sympathetic smile.  Christopher smiled back, cheeks pink.  For the first time all day Amelia’s heart felt light.

“You like kids, don’t you,” Eric asked as they stepped up to the porter taking tickets.

Amelia relinquished her new ticket and the porter nodded for her to board.  She waited for Eric to stride up the gangway behind her before answering, “Yes, I do.”

“I could tell.  And boy those Hamilton girls always looked at you like you
was a princess or something.”

Amelia’s heart twisted to her throat at the mention of her young charges.  How she would miss them!  Eric smiled and took her arm.  He escorted her the rest of the way up the gangplank to the ship.  She turned back to check on Christopher, to look at her homeland spreading, dingy and crowded, behind her.  One last step onto the ship’s first-class deck and she had effectively left her country and her old life behind.  She rested a hand over her stomach, her new life.

“I’m pleased to hear that you can ride,” Eric continued as though nothing of any great importance had just happened.  “When we get to Cold Springs I’ll have Lucy saddled up for you and I can show you the ranch and the town the way it was meant to be seen.”

A twist of anxiety pinched at Amelia’s stomach.  “You’re too kind, Mr. – Eric.  It’s generous of you to take me to America at all.  I wouldn’t want to impose on your generosity any longer than necessary.”

“It’s not an imposition at all.  I got plenty of horses at my ranch.  Unless Curtis has had to sell some to pay the ranch hands.”  His easy smile flopped to a frown.

“It can’t be as bad as all that.”  Amelia dodged around a
pair of embarking passengers.

Eric was in no hurry to get out of the way of the stream of fine men and women coming aboard.  “Well, it might be,” he said as he strolled with her to the end of the deck and a railing that overlooked the second-class section.  “I’ve never been too good with numbers, but Curtis tells me that we’ve been operating at a loss for the last five years or so.  Before I left he warned me that if I didn’t come up with something spectacular I might have to consider selling.”

“And you wouldn’t want to do that?”

“No.  I wouldn’t.”

Even the far end of the deck by the railing was growing crowded.  Amelia glanced out over the dock, watching people on land waving to those who had boarded the ship.  Not a soul would care that she was leaving.  She caught sight of a young woman in tears on the dock waving furiously to a young man in second-class.  He leaned over the railing shouting, “I love you, Theresa!  Wait for me!”

Amelia’s throat constricted.  She thought of Nick’s letter, h
is promises, now ash and dust.

“Truth is, it would break my heart to have to sell the ranch.”  Eric continued to speak beside her, oblivious to her pain.  She owed it to him to give him her full attention.  “I worked my whole life to keep that ranch going.  Pop and Mama worked their whole lives too.  It’s all I got left of them.  In fact, you could say that aside from Curtis, the ranch is the only family I got.  But unless something comes up out of the blue….”

He sighed and leaned against the railing.  Amelia watched him, her chest constricting.  Her problems were behind her now, but his were right there in front of her.  She reached a tentative hand to his back and rubbed it.  Her heart leapt at the warm span of muscle under her hand.  Her heart and lower.

She pulled away as though she’d touched a stove and cleared her throat.  “Perhaps we should search out our stateroom,” she suggested.  “And then maybe something to eat?”

He turned to her, forearms still resting on the railing, and smiled.  Even with the weight of the world on his shoulders he was still one of the most handsome men she’d ever seen.  The morning sunlight made it past the wide brim of his hat to light up his face.  A dangerous stab of longing pierced Amelia’s gut.  She struggled to tamp it down.

“Why, that sounds like a lovely idea.”

Eric straightened and offered his arm.  Amelia did her best to ignore the impulse that she knew would drag her under if she fed it.  She took his offered arm and let him lead her away from the railing toward a set of double doors marking the entrance to the cabins.

The stateroom Eric had reserved for himself was at the far end of a long hallway.  They might have been in first-class, but ships were not hotels.  As Amelia stood out of the way for Eric to open the door to his room, the matching door across the hall jerked open, slamming right into her.

“I’m so sorry, my dear,” a man in his late middle years rushed to apologize as Amelia yelped.  “These hallways are unforgivable.”

“It’s quite all right, sir,” Amelia assured him, hand fluttering to her heart.

“Please forgive me,” the man said to Eric.

“No harm meant.”  Eric nodded.

The man straightened and smiled at Eric.  “At last, someone in first-class who’s not British!”  He held out a hand.  “Benton Chase, of Chase Mercantile, Toronto.”

Eric took the offered hand and shook it with a vigor that only men could muster.  “Eric Quinlan, Cold Springs, Montana.  And this is … this is my wife, Amelia.”

There was no mistaking the mischievous twinkle in Eric’s eyes or the grin he couldn’t keep hidden as he presented Amelia to Mr. Chase.  There also didn’t seem to be any way to keep themselves and their ruse quiet.

“How do you do, Mr. Chase?”  She extended her hand with a smile and all the breeding she’d been born to.

Mr. Chase took her hand and kissed it.  “Delighted, Mrs. Quinlan.  Please call me Ben.”  He let go of her hand and straightened.  “What a handsome couple.”

“You’re too kind, Mr. Chase.”  Amelia blushed.

“Ben,” he reminded her.  “And I see congratulations are in order.”  He nodded to her stomach.

“Oh,” Amelia blushed.

“We’re mighty proud,” Eric said with an impish grin.

“Now if you’ll excuse me,” Ben went on, “I want a good spot on the railing to watch the ship put out to sea.  I hear it’s quite a sight.  I hope to see you up there.”  He tipped his hat to her and nodded to Eric, then was on his way.

“He’s nice,” Eric commented as he turned back to open their stateroom door.  “Seems like the kind of man you could have a conversation with.  I didn’t know a soul on the trip over here and it made for a boring journey.  It’ll be nice to have someone to eat dinner with.”

“Yes,” Amelia agreed, peering down the hallway at Mr. Chase’s retreating back.  Instinct told her to be wary, but the man was likable and the air tingled with new possibilities.

“Oh.”

Eric’s sudden, anxious expression drew her attention to the room.  He’d stepped over the threshold and now stood in what could have been a closet in her father’s house.  A bed was squeezed up against the far wall and their suitcases were piled to the side of the room beside a serviceable bureau.  There was a second door that must have led to a washroom of some sort and modest porthole windows that currently showed patches of sky.

“It’s smaller than the room I came over in,” Eric observed.  He walked to the bed, only three steps, then turned to face her.  “Not a lot of space for first-class.”

Amelia followed him into the room.  She knew very little of ships, but everything she did know indicated that there was nothing terribly unusual about the size of the room.  It was modest but lovely with soft carpet a
nd a quilted spread on the bed.

“I suppose I could ask someone for a spare pillow and blanket so I can sleep on the floor,” Eric said, taking off his hat to scratch his head.

Amelia flushed.  They would be sharing this tiny room.  The bed was in no way big enough for two, and even if it was, pretending to be husband and wife in public was not the same as carrying on the ruse in private.  Especially not with the burr that had settled in her gut at Eric’s kindness and the sight of him smiling in the sunshine.

“I’m sure it will work out.”  She smiled in an effort to make herself look at the bright side of things.  She pressed a hand to her stomach.  “It’s only for a week, and I’m sure we don’t know anyone on the ship that would ca
use a fuss for you in America.”

“
Well, there’s Benton Chase.”  He grinned, catching her good humor about the situation.  “But he thinks we’re a handsome couple.”

“So no harm done,” Amelia finished his thought.  She took one more look around the room.  “We can make this work.  We’ll sail across the ocean to America and no one will be the wiser.”

Eric’s relief at leaving England behind was short-lived.  As he escorted Amelia to the dining room just after dark he was plagued by a sense of disquiet.  The
Majestic
was just so daggone fancy.  First-class was filled with carpets and chandeliers, men and women in expensive clothes, and ship’s staff that expected a tip for every little thing they did for you.  Eric was convinced he should have tried to switch out his ticket for second-class.  He would have even gone with third-class if Amelia wasn’t with him.

He watched Amelia out of the corner of his eye as they entered the glittering dining room.  She was just about the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen when she smiled, which wasn’t often enough.  He’d spent a load of money he didn’t really have buying her clothes that she might not ever wear again once she got her shape back, but he didn’t regret a penny of it.  The light blue of her dinner dress set off the violet-blue of her eyes.  She’d done her hair in a much softer, more feminine style than she’d ever worn it at Reggie Hamilton’s house.  Now that she had no reason to hide, it was clear as day she was expecting.  He liked it.  Everything about her was fine and feminine.

He could be in real danger of falling head-over-heels for his pretend wife.  Not that that would be a bad thing.  His friend, Michael West, had fallen hard for a woman at first sight – whether he wanted to admit to it or not – and had married her the day after he met her.  Last Eric had heard, that had gone just fine.  In fact, the only thing holding Eric back from throwing caution to the wind and getting down on one knee for Amelia, aside from the fact that they were supposed to already be married, was the hole burning in his pocket.

“Why don’t you find us a good table to sit at,” he told her as they paused inside of the grand dining room doors.  She turned those pretty eyes to him in question.  “I got one thing I need to take care of before I eat.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to wait?” she asked.

“No, no.  I’ll just be a second.  And looky over there.  There’s your pal Benton Chase.”  He pointed across the room to where their neighbor from earlier was sitting at one of the room’s large tables chatting with an older lady.  “If we have to share a table with someone, I’d rather share it with him.”

“All right.”  Amelia put on a smile – and it did feel a might put on to him – and squeezed his arm.

He broke into a grin.  “I shouldn’t be that long.  Go on now.”

She stepped away, walking across the crowded dining room like she was gliding on the summer breeze.  Eric couldn’t help but watch her for a few seconds.  Yep, a man would have to be dead six years in his grave not to see what a gem Amelia Elphick was.

His grin hardened to a frown and he turned away.  He had half a mind to march back to London scold her whore of a mother into next Friday for the way she’d treated her own daughter.  And he wanted to beat the crap out of that snake who had knocked her up and left her.  Well, he wouldn’t leave her, not until she was safe and set up on her own.

He strode away from the dining room and out to the open air of the deck.  As soon as the fresh air hit his lungs and ruffled his hair, he relaxed.  The deck was much less crowded than it had been that morning when they’d set sail.  He thought he might invite Amelia to join him for a stroll after dinner.  Her hair would look pretty in the moonlight.  But that wasn’t what took him outside now.

He made straight for one of the lanterns swaying on a post by the railing.  As soon as he was in the light, he reached into his pocket and took out the slip of paper he’d picked up along with Amelia’s ticket.  He hadn’t been expecting a telegra
ph and hadn’t prepared for it.

Darting a glance side-to-side, he uncrumpled the paper and tried to read it.  He could make out his name, Eric Quinlan, at the top, and he’d been able to recognize ‘Curtis’ at the bottom, but he needed time to puzzle the rest of it out.

With a sigh he spread the paper on the railing and put his finger on the first word of the message.  Words never seemed to stand still for him unless he worked to pin them down.

“Ranch not doing well,” he sounded out the first sentence slowly.  “Herd suffered losses.”  His frown deepened.  It was bad enough to struggle with Curtis’s words, but to have them turn out to be so daggone depressing?  “England deal necessary.  You have no money.  Bankruptcy imminent.”