the
Andromeda
up the treacherous Missouri. He’d never ease her safely past the sawyers and sandbars that could fool a less proficient pilot. Nor would he ever duplicate this sense of rightness with any other vessel.
Knowing that didn’t change a thing.
Chase couldn’t think of any way to answer that wouldn’t reveal his envy of Boothe Rossiter’s new command. He simply nodded and relinquished his hold on the steamer’s wheel, feeling as if he’d yielded up some part of himself.
Rue stepped up to take his place. The younger man clasped his hands around the wheel, then turned back grinning. “Oh, yes! She’s wondrously fine!”
Though Chase saw the delight in his brother’s face, there was none of the wonder or intensity. None of the magic. The
Andromeda
had spoken only to him.
“I can’t wait to get her out on a clear stretch of river,” Boothe enthused, his voice rising. “We’ll tie down those damn safety valves, feed her fatwood, and just see what kind of speed those boilers can give us.”
Chase compressed his lips. Rossiter spoke with the kind of reckless arrogance that killed a hundred steamers a year. With the kind of willful disregard for safety that littered the river with wrecks and cost scores of passengers their lives.
And all at once, Chase knew he couldn’t stand idly by and let this irresponsible bastard destroy the
Andromeda.
She was his, by God! She was his destiny.
And all he had to do to claim the steamer was go back to James Rossiter and tell him he was willing to marry his daughter.
The idea of confronting Ann Rossiter and telling her what he’d done made his palms sweat. She’d be convinced he was betraying her—and he probably was.
When he had a chance to talk to her, he’d have to be prepared to make concessions, to offer whatever assurances she needed so he could have his way. So he could have the
Andromeda.
He’d promise her a house with a garden where her child could play in the fresh air and sunshine. He’d offer her money for passage back to Philadelphia. He’d promise her anything so he could claim the
Andromeda
and make it his own.
By the time Boothe had escorted Rue and him back to the landing stage, Chase had made up his mind. He muttered his thanks, then set off up the levee.
Rue caught him as he turned up Locust Street. “Where the devil are you going in such a hurry?”
Chase heard the steel in his own voice when he gave his answer. “I’m going to see a man about a riverboat.”
chapter two
MISERABLE, LYING WEASEL!” ANN ROSSITER HISSED, cursing Chase Hardesty, the man who’d led her on, and then betrayed her trust.
The man she was supposed to marry
in less than an hour.
“Slimy, odious miscreant!”
Ann smacked her silver-backed hairbrush down on her dressing table and stalked across her bedchamber to the pair of tall, lace-curtained windows that overlooked Lucas Place. She’d been shut up in this room for the last two days, alternately weeping and pacing and calling Chase Hardesty every name she knew.
In a little while her stepfather was going to knock on her door expecting to escort her down to the parlor where Reverend Schuyler and her bridegroom were waiting.
“Vile, despicable conniver!”
And once they got downstairs, she was supposed to speak her vows to that
deplorable
man.
God knows, she should have expected Mr. Hardesty’s duplicity. Hadn’t men been taking advantage of her,
failing her outright,
since she was nine years old? She was the world’s greatest fool for thinking—even for a moment— that Chase Hardesty was different.
Yet there had been something in his manner, a warmth in his eyes that swayed her. Because he seemed to care what she wanted, Ann had let herself believe there was something fine in him. Something forthright and honorable. Something she could trust.
Ann stared down from her window to the wrought-iron gate. On Tuesday afternoon Chase Hardesty had stood
right there
and lied to her. He’d given her