“I’m not seeing that fellow who’s been following you,” her friend Madeleine O’Rourke reported, standing beside Allie on tiptoe to peer through the crowd that surrounded them.
“Neither am I,” Allie replied, but she wished she could be certain. She and Maddie weren’t tall enough to look over the others’ heads. With so many people about, their pursuer might be within a few feet of them, and Allie wouldn’t know until he swooped down to grab them. Her hand tightened on her daughter’s.
Stay with us, Lord! We’re so close!
“And when will we catch sight of Mr. Mercer?” her other friend Catherine Stanway asked behind them. With her pale hair smoothed back under a fashionable feathered hat, she did not appear overly troubled by the absence of their leader. “Will the man miss his own sailing?”
Allie shook her head. All she’d wanted this afternoon was to take Gillian aboard the ship bound for Washington Territory. They would travel with Asa Mercer and the dozens of women who had pledged themselves to live and work in the new city of Seattle, to help make it a community.
She’d already met many of the other travelers, from the ever-so-proper Catherine to the outspoken Maddie. She could hear the women in line now, chatting with excitement. Each had a story to tell, of loss, of hope, of faith. Each believed her destiny lay on the far-off shores of Puget Sound. After all Allie had gone through, she refused to be left behind!
And yet, from the moment she and Gillian had tiptoed out of the Howard mansion in the dead of night in Boston two weeks ago, nothing had gone right. One of the horses had thrown a shoe, delaying the stage at Hartford; someone had stolen the bag with most of Gillian’s clothes as she and Allie waited in Danbury; and for the last three days, an older man in a common brown coat had dogged their steps every time they had set foot outside the hotel. Allie was fairly sure she knew his purpose.
She wouldn’t go back to Boston. She couldn’t. Gillian’s future and her own depended on it.
The line crawled forward, far too slowly for Allie, while all around them New Yorkers gathered to see them off, gazes curious, voices no more than a murmur among the calls of the sailors and the creak of hoists. That frost-laden wind tugged at her quilt-lined wool cloak, sending icy fingers even under her gray skirts, and she was thankful she’d decided to put on multiple petticoats instead of the steel crinoline her mother had once favored.
What would her mother and father have said if they could see her now? For the first time she was grateful they hadn’t lived to see how their good friends the Howards had trespassed on her nature.
A tug blew its mournful horn as it chugged by, coughing silver smoke. Allie felt as if the sound echoed inside her. She could not fail, not this time. She refused to be the woman the Howards expected, and she would not allow Gillian to be molded into a shape that ill suited her, forced to marry, to live to please the prominent family.
As if her daughter quite agreed, she pulled on Allie’s hand. “Let’s go, Mother. I’m going to have the vapors.”
The vapors. Allie knew where Gillian had learned the word. Allie had been advised by her mother-in-law to use the excuse whenever she felt distaste for a situation. A lady might have the vapors when an unwanted suitor came to call, when a treasured gown no longer fit properly. If a Howard had the vapors, people scurried to fix the problem. But having the vapors would hardly help them now.
Allie bent to lift her daughter into her arms. Gillian seemed heavier even than the day before. She was growing so fast, at least physically and mentally. But life with the Howards had bruised her daughter, and Allie could only thank God for the chance to take Gillian out of that environment.
“We’ll be aboard soon enough, sweetheart,” she promised. She nodded to the man in a brown coat and cap who stood beside the gangway, sheaf of papers flapping in his grip. “See that fellow? He’s very likely the purser, ready to welcome us. And he may ask us some questions. Remember what we practiced?”
Gillian nodded solemnly. She was such a serious child, every propensity for play eradicated by the stern governess her grandmother had hired.
“We are going west because of Papa,” she said.
Allie nodded encouragement. After all, it was the truth. Frank’s death had been the catalyst to propel Allie from Boston at last. But a casual questioner would likely assume Gillian’s father was waiting for her on the West Coast and not connect them with the story that had appeared in the New York papers about the Howards’ missing daughter-in-law. It had been a little unnerving for Allie to see her face gazing back at her from the sketch on the page.
She only hoped the purser was less observant as she set Gillian back down and came abreast of him. Could he tell that the hair tucked inside her hood was jet black? If she lowered her gaze fast enough, would he fail to notice her eyes were as deep a blue as Gillian’s? Her clothes were wrinkled from travel. She’d traded her velvet coat for this gray wool cloak. She knew she had shed a few pounds of worry with each step away from home.
Did she still look like the daughter of one of Boston’s best families?
Apparently not, for all he said was “Name?” with his gaze poised over the papers. He was a small man, clean-shaven, with straight brown hair peeping out from under his cap of office and not much older than her twenty-three years, she thought.
“Allegra Banks and daughter,” she replied, using every skill her mother had taught her to keep her voice level, calm and composed.
He scanned down the page, then looked up. His smile warmed her. “You are on the list, Mrs. Banks. I’m Mr. Debro, the purser. We’ll provide more information about the journey once everyone has been settled. Welcome aboard.”
Heat flushed up her. This was it, their chance. No more arguments with her mother-in-law about how she should live, what she should think; no more pulling her hand from the fevered grip of Frank’s cousin as he offered himself as her next husband; no more fighting over who would influence Gillian’s future. Perhaps she could even forget the look on Frank’s face when he’d marched off to meet his death at the Battle of Hatcher’s Run, leaving her a widow.
Allie’s foot was on the gangway when a hand came down on her shoulder.
“You don’t have to do this, Allegra,” a man said.
Allie’s breath caught in her chest like a bird in a cage. It couldn’t be. Clay was many miles away and nearly six long years ago. Yet she could not mistake that voice: deep as a winter’s night and warm as hot chocolate on a cold New England morning. It still had the power to set her to trembling.
She glanced back. The man standing behind her dwarfed the purser. One gloved hand sat heavily on her shoulder, the other was wrapped around the handles of a worn leather satchel as if he’d come at great haste to find her. His fur coat would have made him look like a bear except that the hair escaping his fur-lined hat was as red-gold as the lashes framing those cool green eyes. His skin was more bronzed than she remembered, as if he’d spent much time out of doors, and where once he’d laughed at life, now he seemed to be scowling.
Clay Howard could have only one reason for being here now. Somehow, his family had found him and sent him in pursuit of her. They must have thought she’d bow to his demands. She refused to be the little scared mouse of a girl who had wed his brother because she couldn’t bear to follow Clay into the wilderness. She was a widow now, a woman of her own making. She didn’t have to pretend she had the vapors.
She drew herself up, looked down the nose her mother had always called entirely too pert, and said in a perfect imitation of Mrs. Howard’s prim tone, “You have no call to accost me, sir. Unhand me before I call the authorities.”
Mr. Debro took a step closer. “Mrs. Banks? Is there a problem?”
“Banks?” Clay shook his head as he dropped his hand. “I might have known you’d go by your maiden name.” He nodded to the purser. “This is Mrs. Howard,