this through. If you go with me, what are the odds you’ll see them all again?”
“When I play cowboy poker, I stack the odds in me own favor by rememberin’ the cards.”
“That’s all very nice for clever-boots with memories like cameras. But I’m talking about wind currents and continents and many miles between friends.”
“Them wind currents blow east as well as west. And wiv a stout ship that don’t leak, one continent is much the same as another. I say we gets to choose our course, Alice Chalmers, not be blown about like thistledown.”
“You sound like Claire.”
He snorted.
“So you wouldn’t object to the occasional voyage to, say, England—” An idea swooped intoa s width="2e her head like a cliff swallow to its nest. “—if we could pick up a proper cargo?”
“I wouldn’t. There’s a field hard by t’cottage. Lewis and Snouts c’n do some pickin’ at t’scrap yards and rig up a mooring mast there in jig time.”
She needed to speak with Lady Dunsmuir. Surely an empire as big as theirs needed folks with the skills to ferry things around?
She looked over to where the Dunsmuirs were laughing with the count and clinking glasses with him, when the music started up. What was it with these Prussians that everything they played was a waltz? And worse, there was Andrew Malvern heading her way like one of those mining engines under full steam.
“Oh, blast.” She put her cup and saucer down and turned to Jake. “Dance with me.”
“Wot?” He goggled at her as if she’d given him orders to fling himself off the top of the fuselage.
“I don’t want to dance with Mr. Malvern, and he’s headed this way. It’s an act of charity, Jake. Get a move on.”
“I dunno ’ow to dance, Captain!”
“Just get me out on the floor,” she said between her teeth.
He grasped her in a fair approximation of a waltz hold, and she realized that he had grown four or five inches while no one was looking. “One two three, one two three. Just move your feet. That’s it.” Well, this was a blessing. A lifetime of being nimble on his feet in order to survive seemed to be paying off—he picked up the rhythm much more quickly than she had in her few lessons in Edmonton. “Now lengthen your step—I want lots of people between us and him.”
Within a few bars of music, he had done what she asked.
“Well, done, Jake. Remind me to cut you hazard pay for this.”
“Any pay ’ud be good, Captain … one two free, one two free.”
“Point taken. Now see if you can—”
“Excuse me, may I cut in?”
A large body in a black dinner jacket levered Jake out of the way. She got a glimpse of the boy’s astonished face before she thought to look up at the man who had removed him so cavalierly—and so efficiently.
“Evening, Alice,” Frederick Chalmers said as he waltzed her smoothly into the whirling stream of dancers circumnavigating the salon. “You sure do clean up nice.”
Chapter 19
Alice was so gobsmacked that even the swear words that might have been appropriate to the situation fled her empty skull. The best she could manage was a lame, “What are you doing here?”
Chalmerstzed widter she would not think of him as Pa, she just wouldn’t—whirled her into a spin and caught her on the other side of it without missing a step. “I’m trying to find a way to apologize to my daughter without getting shot.”
“I didn’t mean that. I meant, how did you get past the officers at the gangplank when half the camp thinks you’re responsible for the sabotage at the mine?”
For six full bars of music he stared into her face as if he were trying to translate what she’d said from Navapai to Esquimaux. Finally, he said, “You’ve been here less than a day and you’ve heard this?”
“Is it true?” If he could butt in on her nice evening with society folks, then she could butt in on his peace of mind. If he had any.
“It is not. And I am sorry you had to ask. But it’s my own fault, isn’t it, for not providing you with a father you could trust.”
Well, that took the gas out of her balloon good and proper. Maybe she should just shut up and hope that Andrew Malvern would come and cut in. Because getting to the end of this waltz seemed about as simple as flying back to Edmonton in the next three minutes.
“Please don’t lift tomorrow,”