Jo Goodman (50 page)

Jonna followed the direction of Graham's gaze. When she caught her husband's eyes over her shoulder, she smiled. "You'll get no assistance from that quarter, Mr. Denison. He's been in much the same position as you. In this very room, now that I think on it. I suspect he's well on his way to being amused by your distress."

Graham noticed that Decker was indeed grinning behind his wife's back, though perhaps not for the reasons that Jonna was inclined to believe. Graham suspected it had something to do with the trim figure and curved bottom she presented as she bent over him.

Jonna held out a spoonful of laudanum. She merely raised one eyebrow when Graham closed his mouth mutinously.

"Oh—" The spoon was jammed in his mouth as soon as he opened it. He swallowed. "Very well," he finished lamely.

Jonna had the grace and good sense not to appear too triumphant. "I appreciate that you have no wish to be drugged, but there's no reason to experience every nuance of pain. You're quite pale, Mr. Denison."

"Graham."

"Graham, then. And I'm Jonna." She held out her hand and blinked in surprise when he gallantly kissed the back of it. "Oh, my," she said, sinking into the chair behind her. She looked over her shoulder at Decker. "Did you see that? Your friend is charming. I don't recall that you were ever so charming in your sickbed." Decker only grinned at her, and she turned her attention back to her guest. The sparkle in her eyes faded, and the dimple at the corner of her mouth made a brief appearance. "I've heard that charming works best on snakes," she said flatly. "Cobras, specifically. I'd be grateful if you didn't try it on me. You're not here on sufferance. You're here because my husband says you're a man worth knowing and helping."

Graham realized Decker hadn't misled him about Jonna. She did not mince words. "I take it you have reservations."

"I trust Decker," she said. "But, yes, I like to arrive at my own opinion."

"Jonna," Decker said, his tone cautioning.

"It's all right," Graham said. Her eyes were an unusual shade of blue, he saw, almost violet. But this observation was an afterthought. The first thing he noticed was that they could pin him back against the headboard with the same directness as his grandmother's. "What do you want to know?"

"Decker tells me you frequent an establishment owned by a Miss Moreau."

"That's true enough," Graham drawled. He glanced at Decker who could only shake his head. Apparently Jonna's thinking was as much a mystery to her husband as it was to Graham. "It's a brothel."

Jonna's mouth flattened. "Thank you for that clarification," she said dryly. "I understand you often play cards there."

"Guilty."

"So you're a gambler."

"That's right."

"And intemperate?"

"I've been pie-faced on more than one occasion."

"Employed?"

"Only in the sense that my family owns a plantation."

"But what do you do?"

"Nothing if I can help it."

A smile tugged at the corners of Jonna's mouth. "Are you a wastrel, sir?"

Graham considered the word. "Why, yes," he said finally. "I believe I am. Though I prefer the phrase self-indulgent."

Jonna nodded, unsurprised. She shifted in her chair and looked back at Decker. "I believe you're quite right about him. He's a man worth knowing and richly deserving of our help, though there's no accounting for his character. What sort of man cares so little for his reputation that he behaves irresponsibly in public and hides his noble acts?" She raised a single brow and eyed Decker with significant intent. Then her expression softened. "He must be a man like you," she said.

Decker
and
Graham experienced a temporary heat in their cheeks. It was Graham who found his voice first, but then he didn't have the force of Jonna's eyes on him just then. He cleared his throat. "I'm flattered that you make the compar—"

She turned on him. "I'm not a flatterer," she said. "I told you that I would like to arrive at my own opinion, and I have. Decker will tell you that once done, I'm not easily swayed. I'm steady that way. Intractable, some would say."

"
I
would say that," Decker said.

Jonna smiled. "Who knows about you, Graham?" she asked. Had he been as careful as Decker, she wondered, to keep his inner self a secret from others?

"You," he said. "Your husband. Miss Moreau. There are others who know me as part of the Underground but can't put a name to my face or place me at Beau Rivage."

"Beautiful Shore. Is that the name of your plantation?"

"Not mine," he corrected. "My family's. My brother makes certain I don't assume too much in the way of responsibility." He felt her eyes on him again, studying him thoughtfully. Had she detected the faint note of bitterness in his voice, or had she imagined he had only a careless regard for family matters? Jonna Thorne might reconsider that he acted in any way nobly if she thought his behavior was motivated by revenge. Great change, he reflected, was not always prompted by a high-minded, heroic code. Sometimes it only required a profound act of selfishness.

Graham yawned with more intensity than was strictly necessary to make his point. "The laudanum," he explained. "I'm afraid I'm..."

Jonna rose and helped him ease back on the bed. She could see that the effort cost him. The laudanum had only taken the edge off his pain. "The doctor said you were injured twice," she told him. "Once when you were shot, and again, later, when your wound was only beginning to heal. What happened on the second occasion?"

Decker was also interested in Graham's explanation. He moved away from the fireplace to the foot of the bed.

"There's not much to it, I'm afraid," his friend said somewhat wryly. "I passed the time playing cards on my voyage to Boston. I should have remembered from my school days with you Yankees that you take no more kindly to cheating than my Carolina brethren. I, being a paying passenger and all, found myself dodging a fist in my gut instead of another pistol ball."

"You were fortunate they didn't keelhaul you," Jonna said. "Really, Graham, if you're going to be a dissolute gambler, you should hone your skills. It's reckless to be caught cheating." She glanced at Decker, then back at Graham. "As reckless as my husband's taking things that don't belong to him."

Decker ignored Graham's interested look. For the first time he saw the documents lying on the tray at Graham's bedside. He addressed Jonna. "I take it you brought those in here for a reason."

"I didn't think you'd want them misplaced again," she said. "Amanda came in to straighten your room."

Decker had a sudden vision of the papers fluttering to the foot of his bed while Jonna had occupied his full attention. "Thank you," he said. "I've yet to have an opportunity to study them."

Jonna made a small shrug. "I have. There's nothing there really suited to your purpose, Decker. Some contracts. Correspondence. That sort of thing. I confess to a bit of guilt at even looking over the lot of it—Grant is still Remington's competition, after all—but the most interesting thing from my perspective was his African trade. I hadn't realized Grant had expanded in that direction, or that he had ships to spare for it. It's something to consider, isn't it? I mean, in the event that Remington Shipping loses its Southern business connections."

She frowned, suddenly aware of Decker's keen interest. Graham's was only a fraction less intense, but then, she reflected, he had had a good dose of laudanum. "What is it?" she asked. "What's wrong?"

"What do you mean that Sheridan has African trade?" asked Decker.

"He has contacts in certain ports. Monrovia. Accra. Calabar. Given his views, it makes sense that he would develop a trade there. He doesn't hold with the European colonization of Africa. I suspect he's trying to get a foothold on the continent by establishing trade."

"But he's never mentioned it to you?"

Jonna shook her head. "Not once, though it's not entirely odd. I imagine his secretiveness was meant to discourage competition. The accounts indicate it's quite a profitable route."

"What sort of cargo?"

"You didn't get a complete record. I have no idea of the nature of his trade. Bananas, coffee, and cocoa, most likely. He only has two ships serving the route.
Salamander
and
Chameleon.
I've never seen them, so that suggests their home port is somewhere other than Boston. Rio de Janerio, perhaps. Havana. Charlotte Amalie in the Tortulas."

"Charleston." Both men spoke simultaneously.

Startled by their vehemence, Jonna actually took a step away from the bed. She looked from one to the other. There was a misunderstanding here, most obviously on their part. "That can't be right," she said. "Grant Sheridan has very little trade in and out of Charleston. When he does, he goes there himself, to conduct business and protect his ship."

Decker ignored her. He rounded the bed and went for the papers on the table. Graham had already pushed himself upright and was reaching for them at the same time. He got them first, divided them in half, and handed the partial stack to Decker.

"Whatever are you two about?" She did not like the bewildering sensation that raised the hair on the back of her neck. Neither man tried to hide the urgency he was feeling. And it seemed to her that Graham Denison was not looking so tired as he had a few minutes ago. He hadn't repeated that single yawn. Jonna thought she could easily be persuaded that his tiredness was mere subterfuge. He simply hadn't wanted her to develop her line of questioning. "You may as well tell me," she said. "I'll find out—"

"Here it is." Decker pulled one paper free of the others. He snapped it in his hand.
"Salamander. Chameleon.
This is a contract with the masters of those ships. Signed by Sheridan himself."

"Of course Grant would sign it," Jonna said. "They're his clippers."

Graham held up the document in his left hand. "Proof of that." He handed the paper to Decker. "It's a registration for a clipper built here in Boston.
Fixed Star.
Look at the back of it."

Decker turned it over. It was why he had missed it the first time he had leafed through the documents.
Fixed Star
had been sold to the Ivory Coast Trading Company and reregistered as
Salamander.
"But there's no proof that this company belongs to Sheridan."

"Yes, there is," Jonna said. She held out her hand for the documents in Graham's possession. "May I?"

"Gladly." He passed them to her.

"It's an offhanded reference," she said. "In one of the letters. It didn't mean anything to me when I first saw it, but if it's proof you want... here it is. The letter is for Grant in care of the Ivory Coast Trading Company. The address is his office on Malvern Street. Does that help?" She gave it to Decker.

He didn't glance at it. Instead he tossed all the papers to Graham and took Jonna in his arms. "You, madam, are a wonder."

She stared up at him. "You needn't sound so surprised," she said with some asperity. "It's not flattering."

Decker heard Graham chuckling softly, but then he was kissing Jonna and he was only aware of the roar in his own ears. Her lips parted under his, and her arms went around his neck. Standing on tiptoe, she pressed her body flush to his.

"My," Graham said appreciatively. "She
is
straightforward."

Decker and Jonna smiled in unison. It broke the seal on their kiss but not the promise in their eyes. Decker set her away from him gently. "You'll turn her head with that sort of compliment, Graham."

Jonna poked him in the ribs with her elbow.

"What was that for?" he asked.

"For just being a little too full of yourself. It seems two people in this room know something I don't. Which isn't precisely fair, since I apparently told you whatever it is you know."

"That sort of logic is fairly dizzying," Graham said dryly. "Or perhaps it's the laudanum."

Jonna gave him a sour look. "I'm perfectly aware that the laudanum has had no—"

Graham held up one hand, cutting her off. His eyebrows were drawn together, and he was staring at her mouth. "Are you aware you have a dimple"—he touched one corner of his lips—"right here?"

"Fascinating, isn't it?" Decker observed.

If it would not have been such an infantile gesture, Jonna would have stamped her feet. Instead she smoothed the folds of her plum silk gown and quietly sat down. Taking a page from Decker's book, she fell silent.

Conscious of a fault, Decker and Graham exchanged regretful glances. Decker sat on the wide arm of Jonna's chair, one leg stretched to the side. "You won't like it," he said. "I know you've always held Sheridan in esteem for his principles."

"What has that to do with anything?" she asked.

"Salamander
and
Chameleon
are slavers."

Jonna's lips parted, but there was no sound. She didn't look at Decker but at Graham. When he nodded in confirmation Jonna bent her head and stared at her lap. Tears welled in her eyes. Nothing had prepared her for this, yet she didn't doubt she was hearing the truth. Slaver. The word did not distinguish between the ships and the men who dealt in the trade. It was used to describe both.