Mary McBride - Darling Jack

A little ripple of excitement ran down Anna’s spine. Not that Missouri was California, or even Colorado, but it was farther west than she’d ever imagined she would go. She wondered now if she would have gone west with Billy Matlin if he had asked her. But he hadn’t asked. He’d said he’d send for her. And then he never had.

She smoothed her skirt over her knees now. The poplin, not too different from the color of the river, was faring rather well, she thought, and didn’t look at all wrinkled—which it should have, considering she had slept in it the night before.

For all Johnathan Hazard’s reassurances, Anna had not felt comfortable in that hotel room. She had slipped her shoes off, then stopped, not once even considering removing her dress. Especially not with that whiskey bottle in evidence. By his own admission, Hazard was a drinker. If she was awakened by a roaring drunk, Anna had decided, she wanted to be dressed.

What awakened her, however, had been morning light, and the sight of Johnathan Hazard’s chin dipping toward his chest and both his arms hanging limply over the sides of his chair. The bottle was where it had been the night before. On the table. Unopened.

Since she had been already dressed, Anna had waited downstairs while her companion shaved and added an additional nick to the collection on his face. She had been touched somehow by that bright spot of blood, just an inch or so above his strong jawline. She was thinking about it now on the ferry when the warm breeze suddenly carried the scent of bay rum.

“We’ll be arriving shortly, Mrs. Matlin.”

Anna tugged her gaze from the chimneys and church spires on the western river bank to the man who had just taken a seat beside her. By now, the new shaving injury had blended in with the rest. Dark whiskers were already making a return appearance on his chin. The shadows beneath his eyes were darker. Grimmer, than yesterday. Or did they only appear so because she now knew just how Johnathan Hazard passed his long nights?

She smiled at him. In response, his mouth barely flickered at the corners.

“A husband normally addresses his wife by her Christian name, Mrs. Matlin,” he said with a certain stiffness. “I’m afraid I don’t even know yours.”

“Anna,” she whispered, and when he didn’t respond, she said it more loudly, adding, with a hint of irritation, “Of course, if you don’t care for it, you may call me anything you like, Mr. Hazard. False names are quite common in this business, as you well know.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t like it. I was expecting—” he gave a small shrug “—something else. Ruth, perhaps, or Jane, or…”

“A plain name,” Anna said. For a plain woman.

He didn’t reply. Instead, he gazed at her, those blue-gray eyes drinking her in again and coming to rest, as they had the day before, on her mouth. “I like it,” he said a bit huskily. “Your name, I mean. Anna. It’s musical. And quite lovely.” His gaze cut away abruptly.

“Thank you,” she said quietly. “My husband…” Anna suddenly remembered Billy wooing her with a silly off-key song he’d made up about Anna in Havana. It seemed a thousand years ago.

“What are you thinking, Anna?” Johnathan Hazard’s smoky voice intruded on her reverie. “What goes on behind those forbidding bits of glass?”

Her hand fluttered up to her spectacles, readjusting them. “Nothing, Mr. Hazard. Nothing interesting, I’m sure.”

“Jack.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You’ll have to call me Jack.”

“I’ll try, but…”

Hazard’s eyes flicked toward a man who was fast approaching them along the ferry rail. He snagged Anna’s hand and brought her fingers to his lips. “Do it, Anna. It’s time to be my wife. Now.”

His mouth caressed her fingertips, warmly, briefly. Then he let her go and rose to greet the bewhiskered man who had come to a stop by their chairs.

“Anna, this is Henry Gresham, on his way to St. Louis to oversee some last details at the new racecourse. Henry, may I present my bride?”

The man swept off his low-crowned hat and held it over a checkered lapel. “How do you, Mrs. Hazard? Your husband tells me you’re from Michigan. Father’s in lumber, eh?” He slanted a small wink toward Jack.

Anna felt dizzy for a second. So, it had begun. She was a Pinkerton spy now, and obliged to carry out this charade. Her father was not in lumber. When she last saw him, he’d been covered with coal dust, his pale eyes barely visible through a mask of grit. If you go, girl, don’t bother coming back. That had been a thousand years ago. Now she was the daughter of a well-to-do lumberman, from…Where in blazes was she supposed to be from?

“Yes,” she said. “Pine, for the most part.” Her “husband” gave her a small smile of approval. Or was it relief?

Her reply seemed to satisfy the bewhiskered Gresham, as well. He nodded happily, then turned his full attention to Jack.

“Planning to enjoy all the prerace festivities, are you, Hazard? The city’s fairly bursting at the seams already, I hear. People are coming from everywhere. New York State. Virginia. I understand the breeding business is picking up in Kentucky, too, after all the problems during the war. This will certainly be the biggest purse since then. Word has it that even the Baroness Von Drosten will be there with that horse of hers, Chloe’s Gold.”

“Really.” A single eyebrow arched on Jack’s forehead, while the rest of his face remained placid, disinterested. “I hadn’t heard.”

“She’ll win the stakes, naturally. The baroness. Everybody expects it. That horse of hers hasn’t lost a race in the two years he’s been running. Seems—” Gresham stopped suddenly. He looked at Jack then, as if he were only just recognizing him. Color seeped through the whiskers on his cheeks. “Well, you’d know more about that than I, I suppose, considering your, er, relationship with…” Now the man’s gaze fell on Anna, and his voice faltered. “Well, you know…”

No, she didn’t, but Anna felt obliged to put the poor man out of his obvious and self-inflicted misery. “Where will you be staying in St. Louis, Mr. Gresham?”

“Oh, at the Southern Hotel, naturally. Is this your first visit, Mrs. Hazard?”

Anna nodded, thinking it was her first visit anywhere.

“Nice city,” Gresham said. “We won’t have to use these cumbersome ferries much longer, either.” He angled his head toward a conglomeration of wagons and men on the western bank. “Just getting started with a bridge right there. In a few years you’ll be able to cross the Mississippi in a matter of minutes.” He shrugged then. “Well, we’re nearly there. I’d best see to my baggage before some lackey dumps it into the murky waters, eh?”

He grabbed Jack’s hand and pumped it enthusiastically, then tipped his hat to Anna. “A pleasure, Mrs. Hazard. Enjoy your honeymoon, eh? See you at the races, Hazard.”

Honeymoon. The word took Anna by surprise. She had forgotten they were newlyweds. Freshly, thrillingly, in love. Her glance sprang up to Jack’s face, but he wasn’t looking at her. He didn’t seem to be aware of her at all as he stood with his fists tightened on the railing and his eyes fastened on something, or someone, far away.

* * *

“That was a very credible performance,” Jack whispered a while later as he held her elbow and guided her along the gangplank to the levee. “I think that blowhard Gresham really believes you’re a lumber heiress.”

“You might have informed me earlier, Mr. Haz— Jack,” Anna said. “Is there anything else in my background I ought to be aware of?”

He came to a halt halfway down the gangplank and looked down at her. “Don’t take this so seriously, mouse. All you have to do is hang on my arm and behave like a bride. Let me take care of the rest.”