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Moon in the Water

Excerpt No. 2

Trapped—here. Trapped—here. Trapped —

The needle and thread Ann Rossiter thrust and then pulled through the fabric stretched taut over her embroidery hoop seemed to whisper of her predicament. Trapped in her step-father's house, isolated, apprehensive, and vulnerable. Trapped by restrictions that chafed her raw and circumstance she could barely bring herself to acknowledge.

She ached to leave, to run away someplace where nobody knew her. She'd packed her things last fall and had gotten as far as Memphis before her step-father's men caught up with her. Since then the commodore had kept her too closely confined to try again, but Ann kept watching, waiting for an opportunity.

When the door to the cozy second floor sitting room started to open, Ann grabbed for the kitchen scissors hidden in the folds of her skirt.

James Rossiter stepped through the doorway. "Hello, Ann," he greeted her. "How are you feeling today?"

Ann released the reassuring weight of the scissors. "Well enough, thank you, Father."

"Good," he answered, sauntering nearer. "Good."

He paused not quite a foot from her chair and compressed his lips. He clearly had something to say to her, something he thought was important.

Probably something she wasn't going to like.

Though her fingers had begun to tremble, she bent even more intently over her stitching.

The commodore cleared his throat and waited. When she refused to so much as look his way, he proceeded anyway. "Since you seem to be feeling well enough, there's someone I'd like you to meet."

Ann raise her head in spite of herself. Her step-father hadn't allowed her to speak to anyone except family or servants for weeks and weeks. God knows, it had been easy to cut her off. She'd been gone from St. Louis long enough to lose track of the boys and girls she played with when she was a child, and since she'd been back, she hadn't made the kind of friends who'd come banging on the door demanding to see her. She'd been sequestered in these upstairs rooms, shut safely away while the commodore met with his bankers and employees in his study downstairs, or had dinner with his cronies in the dining room.

Ann tucked her needle into the cloth at the prospect of having a visitor. "Who on earth is it you want me to meet?"

"The man's name is Chase Hardesty," James Rossiter answered. "He's one of the Gold Star most reliable pilots."

Ann set aside her embroidery altogether and struggled to suppress the note of eagerness that crept into her voice. "Is there a particular reason you want me to meet him, Father?"

Rossiter lowered himself onto the footstool, then reached to take her hands. She submitted to his touch, let her fingers lie lax in his, though she didn't like it.

"You know, Ann," he offered almost kindly, "I've been giving your situation a good deal of thought."

"So have I."

"And I think I may well have hit upon a solution."

She raised her gaze to his, succumbing to a thrill of hope. Perhaps the commodore had finally seen things her way. Perhaps he was asking this pilot, this Mr. Hardesty, to escort to New Orleans or Cincinnati. To someplace where she could live in peace and anonymity.

"What seems to make sense—" Her step-father allowed himself a self-congratulatory smile. "— is for you to marry a strapping young man and start raising your family. And I've found just the fellow!"

The breath whooshed out of Ann like air from a bellows. Her brain went porous with shock. "You—you want me to m-m-marry this Mr. Hardesty?" she finally managed to gasp. "The man downstairs?"

Her step-father inclined his head. "I've been watching Hardesty ever since he came to work for me. He's a good, dependable fellow, and an extremely able pilot. I think he'll make you a damn fine husband."

Ann couldn't do more than gape at him. This man—the man her mother had entrusted her to when she lay dying—intended to marry her off to a stranger! To some riverboat steersman!

He meant to betray her all over again.

Cold ran through her veins and pooled in the pit of her belly. Her head swam and her mouth went dry with revulsion. Then blistering outrage roared in on the heels of the shock.

Ann jerked her hands out of James Rossiter's grasp and surged to her feet. The scissors clattered to the floor.

"This isn't the Dark Ages!" she shouted at him. "Men don't arrange marriages for their daughters. Women aren't wed against their will. Surely Mr. Hardesty hasn't agreed to this!"

"He's consented to meet you."

At least Mr. Hardesty was astute enough not to buy a pig in a poke, Ann thought. Still, what kind of a man would be party to wedding a woman he'd didn't even know?

He'd have to be someone unscrupulous. Someone ambitious. Someone who didn't understand the scope of what he was agreeing to do.

Suspicion swooped through her. "What exactly did you tell Mr. Hardesty about me?" she wanted to know.

"For God's sake, Ann!" her step-father snapped at her. "How do you expect me to remember exactly what I said?"

That meant her step-father hadn't told her prospective bridegroom why he'd been soliciting someone to marry her. He was leaving it to her to tell him, to stand there sick with shame as contempt rose in Hardesty's eyes.

"Well, I won't meet with him," she declared. "I won't!"

Rossiter all but leaped to his feet. "Damn you, girl! If you'd only be agreeable, we could get this settled."

"'Get this settled?'" she echoed. "Have you made some sort of bargain with Mr. Hardesty, Father? Is my new husband already bought and paid for?"

When he didn't deny it, Ann pressed him. "So what is the going rate for a man's good name?"

Though his face mottled red, James Rossiter couldn't seem to deny what he had done. "No petty price! I'll tell you that!"

For a moment Ann thought he was going to refuse to say anything more. Then he sucked in his breath, as if he wanted her to know exactly how grateful she ought to be.

"I've offered him ownership of one of the Gold Star's steamers in exchange for a quick marriage and no questions asked."

"Is it really worth giving Mr. Hardesty a boat worth tens of thousands of dollars to strip me of the Rossiter name?"

Her step-father's jaw clenched. For an instant Ann thought he meant to strike her. He backed away instead.

"I suggest you make the most of the time you have with Chase Hardesty, because you aren't likely to find a better—or a more congenial—suitor."

"Please, Father! Can't you just let me leave on my own?" she all but begged. "If you let me go, I swear I'll never trouble you again."

He paused when he reached the door. "Go see to your appearance, Ann. Put on your good gray gown and repin your hair. I'll show Mr. Hardesty into the parlor once you're ready."

He slammed the thick wooden panel behind him, leaving Ann standing alone in the ringing silence.

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Excerpt 2
Excerpt 3
Excerpt 4
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Excerpt 6
Excerpt 7
Excerpt 8

EXCERPT FROM MOON IN THE WATER
BY ELIZABETH GRAYSON
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