Merline Lovelace (3 page)

“In fact,” she murmured, placing her gloved palms on his chest, “I chose this dress with you in
mind. I hoped it would open your eyes and make you see I’m a woman grown, with a woman’s desires.”

Sheer surprise blanked his face. “Good Lord!”

“It’s all right,” she murmured, astonishing even herself with her daring. “You won’t be the first.”

“The devil you say!”

His shocked exclamation took her aback for a moment, but she’d gone too far now to ignominiously retreat. Her palms glided upward, slipped behind his neck.

“It’s true. I’ve been kissed before. A number of times, if you must know. You won’t be the first.”

The relief that burst through Sam was so sharp and profound he almost laughed aloud. For a moment there, he’d actually believed… Had thought…

What a dog he was for even imagining that Victoria had bedded with a man! The very idea was absurd. The girl was barely out of hair ribbons and pinafores.

Although…

The lush curves displayed so enticingly by that damned gown certainly didn’t belong to any girl. Nor did the red, ripe lips mere inches from his own.

Still, Sam had no intention of claiming the kiss she was so obviously offering. She was his niece’s playmate, for pity’s sake. He wouldn’t trifle with
her here, under his sister’s roof. Hell, he wouldn’t trifle with her at all.

No sooner had that thought formed than he discovered that he’d seriously underestimated the little minx. Rising up on tiptoe, Victoria pressed her lips to his.

It wasn’t much more than an awkward fumble. A crooked slant of mouth against mouth. Yet for the second time that night, she rocked Sam right back on his heels.

She tasted so sweet, so warm. So damned delicious. Like a light, sugary pastry fresh from the oven. The greedy desire to steal a deeper taste hit Sam with a punch. Unthinking, he wrapped an arm around her waist and drew her up against his chest.

With a little moan, she fit her body to his. Her mouth opened under his. Rich. Ripe. Promising sensual delights that sent a shaft of heat straight to his groin.

For a few moments, Sam forgot who she was. Forgot where they were. With her corset stays digging into his ribs and her breasts plump against his shirtfront, he came close, damned close, to forgetting that it was another woman whose lips he ached to cover with his own.

With a little grunt, he jerked his head up. Her lids fluttered open. Shame stabbed into him when he saw the dazed confusion in her cornflower eyes. So much for her claim of having been kissed be
fore! He’d bet she hadn’t experienced more than a few chaste pecks on the cheek by that fuzz-faced lieutenant.

Sam had to admit this kiss had been anything but chaste. She wore the marks of it on her face. Her lips were swollen, and his chin had scratched a red patch on hers. There wasn’t much he could do about that, but he could at least repair some of the more obvious damage.

Feeling like the vilest lecher alive, he gently set her away from him. “Your hair’s come down.”

“What?”

“Your hair. Turn around.”

Still dazed, she submitted to the gentle pressure of his hands. To Sam’s consternation, the line of her neck and shoulders sent another spear of heat straight to his belly. The glimpse over her shoulder at her high, full breasts almost bent him double.

Thoroughly disgusted with himself, he lifted the tumbled strand. It curled around his fingers like a living thing, warm and soft as a summer breeze. He couldn’t decide whether the color was more copper or gold.

Not that the color mattered, dammit! Victoria Parker was a guest under his sister’s roof, for God’s sake. He had no business playing with her hair. Or any other part of her! With more haste than skill, he shoved the strand in place.

“Shall we rejoin the party?”

She blinked, confused by his abrupt withdrawal. Calling himself ten kinds of a fool, Sam took her elbow and urged her toward the door. One step into the hall, they almost collided with Elise.

“Here you are! I’ve been looking for you everywhere.” Her curious gaze darted from her uncle to her friend. “Whatever were you doing in the sewing room?”

A blaze of red rushed into Victoria’s cheeks. Calmly, Sam answered for them both.

“Victoria was asking my opinion about the cowboy cavalry.”

“Was she indeed?”

A sly smile curved Elise’s mouth. Sam ignored it. “Did you come to tell us that you’re ready to crank up the gramophone and begin the dancing?”

“Oh! No!” Recalled to her mission, the brunette poured out a hasty explanation. “I came to tell Victoria that her papa wishes to leave at once. He’s asked for your carriage to be brought up from the barn.”

“Papa wants to leave? But why?”

“You’ll never believe it! Ed Jernigan sent a rider out from town with the most awful news.”

The news must be terrible indeed for the
Tribune
’s senior reporter to send a rider all this way on such a cold, blustery night.

“What’s happened?”

“You can’t imagine!”

“Elise!” Sam snapped. “Tell us at once!”

“The Spanish just blew up one of our ships in Havana harbor! The USS
Maine,
I think it was. Reports are it went down with all hands.”

Victoria could only stare at her in shock, but Sam uttered an oath he would never have used in front of two young ladies under less portentous circumstances.

“Your papa wants to rush a special edition of the
Tribune
into print. He’s waiting for you in the vestibule. I was sent to find you and tell you to get your wraps immediately.”

Almost as dazed by the stunning news as by Sam’s shattering kiss, Victoria rushed out. Suddenly, irrevocably, the war that had hovered for so long in the distant future was upon them.

T
en hours later, an exhausted Victoria was sure she would remember that February night as long as she lived.

It was well past midnight by the time the Parker carriage pulled up in front of the brick building on the corner of Seventeenth Street and Carey Avenue that housed the offices of the
Cheyenne Daily Tribune.
Not to be confused with the
Weekly Tribune,
Deitrich Parker’s newspaper was only one of six that vigorously competed for circulation in Wyoming’s bustling capital. The
Tribune
’s arch rival, the
Cheyenne Daily Sun-Leader,
dominated the scene, but readers were so hungry for news and entertainment that Victoria’s papa deposited a very respectable profit into his accounts each month.

Lights blazed from every window of the
Tribune
’s offices when Deitrich hurriedly kissed his wife on the cheek.

“I don’t know how late ve vill be,” he warned as he climbed out. His boots squishing in the snow, he handed his daughter down.

Both he and Victoria braced themselves for a stern lecture, but Rose Parker merely nodded. Like her husband, she took pride in her daughter’s cleverness with words, but had come to disapprove of the amount of time Victoria spent at the newspaper offices. Composing stories was an acceptable pastime for a well-brought-up young lady. Sitting down at a Linotype machine and actually transferring those stories to print, as Victoria had been known to do in a pinch, took matters a step too far in Rose’s considered opinion.

“Do wear a smock,” she adjured her daughter.

“Yes, Mama.”

“Although I cannot approve of the alterations you’ve had made to that dress—which is a matter we shall discuss later!—I shouldn’t like to see it covered with ink.”

“No, Mama.”

Not at all fooled by the demure reply, Rose harrumphed and settled back on her seat.

Hanging on to her papa’s arm, Victoria plowed through the drifting snow. Once inside the offices, the familiar stink of sawdust, rag paper and printer’s ink enveloped her. Most of the staff was already there, she saw, roused from their beds by the senior editor.

In addition to the three hefty immigrants who worked as bundlers and distributors, the
Tribune
employed two full-time reporters, one part-time contributor besides Victoria, a free-lance sketch artist and aged Mr. Woodbury, a master at the fine art of typesetting. Fortunately for the newspaper industry, but unfortunately for Mr. Woodbury, the recent invention of the Linotype machine had rendered his centuries-old profession obsolete. He’d forced himself to learn how to operate the newfangled machine, but sat down at the keyboard with great and obvious reluctance.

“Vhere’s Jernigan?” her father asked, throwing off his overcoat. It landed on the scarred oak counter separating the front area from the offices beyond and slipped, unheeded, to the floor.

“Right here.” The tall, gangly senior editor popped out of his office. “The telegraph wires are burning up,” he informed his boss.

Holding open the swinging gate in the counter for Victoria and her papa, he followed them back to his office. The news staff crowded in behind.

“I’ve sorted through the dispatches we’ve received so far and tried to make sense of them,” Jernigan said, “but every report that comes in contradicts the last.”

“Haf ve heard from AP?”

Like most newspaper owners with the proper credentials, the correct political affiliations and pockets
deep enough to afford the steep costs, Deitrich Parker subscribed to the Associated Press. The news cooperative had been founded mid-century by New York newspaper magnates anxious to pool resources and collect the latest news from Europe, while at the same time minimizing the exorbitant Trans-Atlantic telegraph costs. In the forty years since, it had grown to a vast network of newspapers stretching from New York to San Francisco, with its own leased telegraph wires to flash news rapidly over a 26,000-mile circuit.

“Yes,” Jernigan confirmed. “AP and INS. Hearst’s people were right there, on the scene.”

Unlike the AP, which made a claim to serious news reporting, the International News Service founded by William Randolph Hearst a few years ago provided the lurid, sensational stories that so appealed to the masses. In his running battle with Joseph Pulitzer for increased circulation, Hearst had sent a small flotilla of INS reporters to Havana to cover the Cuban insurrection. Several of these gentlemen, Jernigan related, had been sipping rum and puffing cigars on the veranda of the Inglaterra Hotel in Havana when a massive explosion rocked the city.

“They sprinted to the harbor and hired a boat.” Admiration for the reporters’ enterprising spirit colored Jernigan’s voice. “Came within yards of the twisted, burning wreckage.”

Her heart in her throat, Victoria peered over her papa’s shoulder to read their terse, gripping dispatches.

AP’s F. J. Hilgert reported only that the United States battleship
Maine
was blown up in Havana harbor, but Harry Scoval of the
New York Journal
indicated that many aboard had been killed or injured. The reporter himself had helped pull several bodies from the water.

Victoria gulped. Like so many of the reporters in Cuba, Scoval had long had a reputation for becoming immersed in the news he reported, but this was direct involvement indeed.

She stood silent while her papa skimmed the dispatches a second time. His brows twitching wildly, Deitrich faced his staff.

“What do ve haf on the
Maine?
”

“I pulled some of the dispatches that were filed when she steamed into Havana.” Shuffling through the papers stacked on his desk, Jernigan snatched one from the pile. “She’s a man-of-war, commissioned in 1895 and—”

“
Ja, ja,
this I know! How many men vas she carrying vhen she dropped anchor in Havana?”

“Three hundred and fifty-four.”

“Mein Gott!”
Shaking his head, Deitrich put aside all personal feelings. “Ve vill lead with the explosion. Ed, you must glean vhat details you can
from tonight’s dispatches. Remember, ve don’t know yet who or vhat sank the
Maine.
”

The tone of the dispatches had left no doubt in Victoria’s mind. It was the Spanish. It had to have been the Spanish. They’d long resented U.S. interference in Cuba. Had threatened repercussions over the money and arms shipped to the rebels by Americans. Had lodged a strong protest when a U.S. battleship steamed uninvited into Havana harbor.

When Ed Jernigan presented essentially those same arguments, however, Deitrich offered another view of the matter.

“Ve can’t discount the possibility that it vas an accident. Or,” he added after a moment, “that the Cuban rebels blew up the ship.”

“No, I suppose we can’t,” the editor conceded. “The Cuban junta in Washington’s been agitating for years for the United States to send more than just money and arms. They’d have to know an incident like this would propel us into war.”

“There are powerful men in this country who might think so, too,” Deitrich reminded him grimly.

Shocked, Victoria opened her mouth to protest. She clamped it shut again as she recalled the rumor that had floated around the news community some months ago. Supposedly, Frederick Remington, who’d been covering the Cuban insurrection for the
Journal,
had cabled Hearst that things were quiet
and there would be no war. Rumor had it that the powerful publisher had wired back, instructing the artist to remain in Havana. Hearst would supply the war if Remington would supply the pictures.

Victoria had thought the story just a bit of juicy gossip at the time, but now… She swallowed another gulp as her father stated emphatically that they must let the facts speak for themselves.

“Ve vill not address who or vhat caused this tragedy until it is known. Thomas, I vant a sketch of the
Maine
for center page.”

“Afloat or going down?”

“Going down. Banks, you and Dobbs vill describe the ship and her armaments. I myself vill remind our readers of the sequence of events leading up to this black, black night.”

“What about me, Papa?”

He turned to his daughter, his lips pursed. “If it doesn’t distress you too much,
liebchen,
you may write about the captain and his crew. Pull the information from previous dispatches and try to put real people to the names on the ship’s roster. Do you think you can do this?”

“Yes.”

“Gut.”
Turning, he clapped a hand on Mr. Woodbury’s stooped shoulder. “I hope your bones don’t ache too badly tonight, my friend. Ve haf much to do.”

The rest of the night passed in a whirl of frantic activity. Dispatches going as far back as two years were picked apart for details about the
Maine,
the ongoing war in Cuba and the United States’s increasingly strained diplomatic relations with Spain. Stories were written, revised, edited. Ed Jernigan’s red pencil flew, and Deitrich’s brows waggled continuously as he clasped his hands behind his back and paced the floor like a man awaiting the birth of his first child. As soon as Ed approved each piece, it was rushed to Mr. Woodbury, hunched over the Linotype keys.

Around 4:30 a.m., the elderly compositor’s aching back and arthritic hands began to protest. At five, Victoria donned a canvas duster and took his place at the noisy machine with its hissing steam cylinders, clanking rotary press and overhead loom feeding a continuous roll of paper. At seven-fifteen, the four-page special edition of the
Tribune
rolled off the press.

With her hands stained by ink and her hair tumbling around her shoulders, Victoria stood beside her papa to view the first sheets off the press. In three-inch letters, the banner headline screamed the tragic news.

USS
Maine
Sunk In Havana Harbor

Many Aboard Feared Lost

“Gut!”
Deitrich declared. “
Sehr gut!
Get them bundled and put out as soon as the ink dries. Our readers vill snatch them up!”

When the first copies of the
Tribune
hit the street an hour later, Cheyenne was already abuzz with wild rumors. Citizens anxious for news had lined up outside the
Tribune
’s offices, as well as those of the
Sun
and the
Eagle.
Bundled against the cold, they waited impatiently for the first editions while a bright sun slowly melted the previous night’s snow to slush and the carriage horses on busy Carey Avenue threw up clumps of mud.

Victoria dragged off the stained duster just after 9:00 a.m. She was exhilarated by their success in putting the special edition on the street, yet sobered and saddened by the news it conveyed. To clear their heads of ink fumes, she and her papa elected to walk the few blocks to their home on East Seventeenth Street. They made an odd sight, she was sure, with him in his top hat and beaver-trimmed overcoat and her in the boots and the warm cloak she’d hurriedly pulled on last night over the sapphire ball gown.

As they threaded through the crowds milling about on the crowded streets, it seemed as if every one of Cheyenne’s ninety thousand citizens had congregated to discuss the sinking of the
Maine.
It also became very clear that they didn’t share Dei
trich Parker’s wait-and-see attitude concerning the perpetrator of the vile act.

“We’ll have at those dastardly Spanish now!” a bewhiskered dry goods merchant declared to the group gathered outside his mercantile. “Our boys will make every last dago in Cuba pay for this outrage.”

“You can count me as one of them boys,” announced a bleary-eyed wrangler who’d obviously spent the previous night in one of Cheyenne’s twenty-two thriving saloons. “I’m heading down to the armory this morning to volunteer.”

“I’m for the navy,” a burly railroad worker proclaimed. “I can shovel coal into a boiler with the best of ’em. Them pointy-bearded Spaniards mighta sunk one of our ships, but I’m aguessin’ we’ll soon send ten more steamin’ right into Havana harbor.”

Their patriotism won unanimous approval from the rest of the crowd.

“That’s the spirit, boys!”

“We’ll show ’em, by jingo!”

Edging around the crowd, Victoria hooked her arm in her papa’s. “Not everyone shares your sense of caution before ascribing blame,” she observed.

“The country is ripe for var. People
vant
to believe the Spanish committed this terrible act.”

“It certainly seems so. I shouldn’t have thought that— Oh!”

With a thump, she collided with an overcoated
figure just turning the corner. His strong hands caught her before she went off the board sidewalk and into dirty slush.

“I do beg your pardon, Victoria.”

One look into Sam’s face instantly erased the long hours at the
Tribune
’s offices. With a rush of heat, those stolen moments in the sewing room filled her thoughts. Her belly tightened, and it was all she could do to keep a most ridiculous breathlessness from her voice.

“What are you doing back in town so early?” she asked. “I was sure Elise told me you planned to stay the night out at the ranch.”

“I brought Mary in to catch her train. I left her at the depot while I came in search of a newspaper.”

The sparkle of the sun on snow dimmed a bit.

“Yes, of course. Mrs. Prendergast did mention that she intended to continue her journey this morning.”

“Auch du lieber!”
Her papa slapped his forehead under the tip-tilted top hat. “I forget she leaves so soon. I vanted to hear more about her trip to consult with Dr. McGee.”

“You still have time,” Sam advised. “The train isn’t due in for a good half an hour yet.”

“
Gut!
Come, Victoria, let me escort you home so I may hurry down to the station.”

“Go ahead, Papa. I can walk two blocks on my own.”

“And haf your mama skin me whole! No, no, a young lady doesn’t valk the streets unaccompanied.”

“But that same young lady can stay at the newspaper offices all night to help her papa put out a special edition,” his daughter teased.