Mary Shura: Gabrielle

"Whew," Stephen said, dropping his arms.

"I hate cows," she said, wishing her voice wouldn’t squeak like that. "And bulls," she added after a minute. "And horses, and pigs, and chickens, especially roosters."

Stephen was smiling down at her in that lopsided way that she shouldn’t still find attractive after the way he had treated her.

"Thank you for that," she said after a minute. "But nothing has changed. You’re still a thief and a low life who took advantage of me the minute I turned my back."

Flossie was coming through the woods, calling.

"She wants you to get back in the buggy," Stephen told her calmly.

"And I want you to give me one reason why I should. It was bad enough that before I even left that boat everybody was telling me how they would get along just fine without me. But I had no idea that the minute I got off, you would grab my act and take top billing."

Flossie, her bonnet now hanging halfway down her back, stopped a few feet away from them.

"Wait right there, Gabrielle Prentice," she said firmly. "You want one reason why you should quit acting like a common scold? I’ll name you that reason: Captain Joshua Prentice, he’s your reason."

Gabrielle stared from Flossie to Stephen. "You’re making that up."

Flossie grabbed for her bonnet and rammed it back on her head. "Tell her, Stephen," she ordered.

Stephen’s expression was sober and his eyes were pleading. "Nobody planned for this to happen, Gabrielle. You have to remember that news travels along the shore like a log rides the river current. At our next stop downriver, the crowd was furious. They told the captain how many miles they had traveled to see the tightrope-walking act. They asked for their money back. Then when they thought about the trouble they had gone to to get there, they threatened to get their money back double if they had to beat it out of the crew."

Flossie nodded to assure her what Stephen said was true.

"That’s when your father asked me to try to fill in for you. I am a gymnast, you know, and there’s not too big a jump between what I have always done and tightrope-walking. The boat stayed over that next night and I did my first show. It wasn’t any great performance, but it satisfied the people who had been so threatening the night before."

"Did Father have to let them all in free?" she asked, knowing how her father hated to be bullied into anything.

He nodded, then grinned that half-embarrassed way. "But let’s face the facts, Gabrielle. I’m nothing like as much fun to look at as you are. I had to add a little to the act to make it worth their money."

"Add a little?" Gabrielle asked. "What does that mean?"

"Part of the way he rope-walks on his hands," Flossie explained. "And that’s why I brought that handbill along. Your father has this wonderful idea—"

"Could we talk about the new act in the buggy?" Stephen asked. "Captain Prentice is going to be pacing the deck with his binoculars, watching for us to get back."

Flossie reached for Gabrielle’s hand. "Come on, love," she coaxed. "Give your father a chance."

Her father! It hadn’t occurred to her that anyone but Stephen himself had come up with that traitorous idea. But her father was right. Stephen could do anything with his superb balance and slender, muscular body. Lost in thought, she let Stephen lead her back to the buggy. When she looked at him, he was watching her soberly.

"I’m really sorry, Stephen," she said. "I feel like an absolute fool for having lost my temper like that. Forgive all those things I said. I just didn’t know."

Instead of untying the reins, Stephen put his arm across the back of her seat and leaned toward her. "Then you didn’t really mean them?" he asked quietly.

She shook her head. "I was angry and I didn’t know."

"A few minutes ago I was congratulating myself that we might finally become friends," he told her. "Now that doesn’t satisfy me. I’ve already told your father that if you decided against that land person and came back to us, I wanted his permission to try to persuade you to marry me."

When she gasped in astonishment, he laughed softly. "Oh, Gabrielle," he said. He shook his head and took her gently by both shoulders. "You are so skilled at what you do, and act the lady that you are so much of the time that I forget how young you are. If you had known anything at all about men, you would have known that I couldn’t stand to be near you because I was out-of-my-mind in love with you. I couldn’t listen to you sing without wanting to kill every man in the room for hearing you, too."

"But, Stephen," she cried. What could she say? Maybe he didn’t need to know how much his angry treatment had hurt her. But the very thought that he cared that much made her breath quicken.

"I guess I thought I had forever," he went on quietly. "I knew from the very beginning how deeply your father loved you. I knew I had to prove myself to him first. I had to wait until he knew I was serious, both about you and about being a showboat captain. I was terrified that he might turn me down, maybe even throw me off the boat." He grinned down at her. "I have your father’s permission to court you. Now I need yours."

From the backseat, Flossie spoke quietly. "I can see the billing now: Madame Gabrielle and Monsieur Etienne in the Death-Defying… and so forth."

Gabrielle looked at him. She had always thought him talented, and one of the handsomest men she’d ever seen, but she had never seen him like this, gentle and maybe a little fearful of what answer she might give.

David, smiling and confident, was suddenly full in her mind. "I almost always get my way," he had told her.

Did she want Stephen to court her? She certainly hadn’t wanted David to! How many times had she told him she didn’t know him well enough even to talk about marriage? But Stephen was different from David in so many ways—all of them good. She and Stephen shared so many things: their pride in the work they did, their respect for her father, and their mutual dreams of spending their lives on the river.

There wasn’t any really ladylike way to give an honest answer. It wouldn’t be honest to tell him no, but neither did she want to be rushed and pushed again. She raised her eyes to Stephen’s and saw something special there, a patience that said he felt she was worth waiting for. He was really willing to court her, not try to sweep her off her feet with elaborate praise, warm embraces, and the offer of fine houses and land. Not until the words were out did she realize how prim she sounded. "I think I would enjoy that very much, Stephen."

Flossie laughed from the backseat. "What a disappointment. I thought I would be forced to get out and walk about a mile up that road while you started this heavy courting."

Stephen smiled back at her. "Forget the walk up the road, Flossie. Gabrielle and I understand each other. If you want to create something to last forever, you don’t try to throw it together overnight."

As he spoke, he leaned to Gabrielle. It was wonderful to feel Stephen’s lips touch hers gently, to feel his arm close around her protectively and feel safe and comfortable there.

And when she and Stephen knew each other well enough and decided that it was time, she wouldn’t wonder if she was turning to him to escape anything the way she had with David. When that day came, she would be turning to him only for love.

Flossie sighed from the backseat. "Very well. If there’s not going to be a grand finale, I might as well take another nap. But don’t forget that I’m dying of thirst back here."

Stephen laughed softly as he brought the horse to a brisker canter. Reaching over, he laid his free hand over Gabrielle’s on the seat between them, and smiled at her with eyes as deep as the river.