Free Forget-Me-Not Bride by Margaret Pemberton Page B

with a touch of the gypsy about him would wear a gold earring?
    â€˜What the devil,’ his brandy-dark voice said from behind her, disbelief in its tones, ‘… are you doing aboard the Senator ?’
    Her head whirled round. He was standing looking down at her, not with amusement and admiration, but with a frown. A frown very similar to that with which he had first greeted her.
    â€˜I …’ She could hardly tell him she was travelling as a Peabody bride. He would assume she was spoken for; that she had a fiancé waiting for her in Dawson. ‘I’m going to the Klondike,’ she finished lamely, her heart racing.
    He was still wearing dove-grey, but somehow she thought it wasn’t the same suit as the one he had been wearing yesterday. And this time there was a watch-chain across his chamois vest; a watch-chain made of very small gold nuggets. ‘I hardly thought you were en route for Florida.’ His sarcasm pierced her dizzy pleasure at his having recognised her and spoken to her.
    â€˜I don’t like heat,’ she snapped, stung into a ridiculous reply: ‘And I don’t like oranges.’
    He walked around to the front of her seat and stared down at her, too perturbed to be amused. ‘Do you have family in the Klondike, Miss …?’
    â€˜Stullen.’
    â€˜A father perhaps? A brother?’
    Despite the devastating effect his physical presence had on her, Lilli was beginning to feel more than a little annoyed. Her reasons for travelling to the Klondike were really none of his business. And his so bluntly asking if she had family there was impertinent. ‘I have friends there,’ she said, not feeling it was truly a lie because when she arrived she would have friends there. She would have Lettie and Edie and Marietta and Kate and Susan.
    He had removed his Homburg and his hair glinted wheatgold in the strong sunshine. ‘I hope they’re the right kind of friends, Miss Stullen.’ He was still frowning, hoping to God she wasn’t referring to girls who were his employees, wondering even as he did so why it should matter. ‘The Klondike is no place for a respectable young woman …’
    â€˜Really?’ Lilli wasn’t accustomed to being patronised. Not even by a Greek god. She said spiritedly, ‘It may interest you to learn that one of the very respectable female friends I am travelling with is both a kindergarten teacher and a sourdough, Mr … Mr …?’
    â€˜Coolidge,’ he said, amusement tugging at him again just as it had when she had so disarmingly apologised for frightening the horse. ‘Jack Coolidge.’
    â€˜And a sourdough, Mr Coolidge, is a person who has …’
    â€˜I’m well aware of the definition of a sourdough, Miss Stullen.’ Now that he was more or less convinced she wasn’t travelling to Dawson to work as a dance-hall floosie he could allow the amusement she aroused in him to surface. ‘Dawson City is my home.’
    Her relief was so vast she was sure that if she hadn’t already been seated her knees would have given way.
    â€˜How … nice.’
    â€˜That’s just the problem,’ he said dryly. ‘Dawson isn’t “nice”. It’s a man’s town.’ He thought of the saloons and gambling places and raucous red-light district. It was no place for a young woman as beautiful and pure-looking as a Raphael Madonna. ‘I wouldn’t advise staying there too long.’
    â€˜I … er … I’d thought of making it my home,’ she said, realising that she was going to have to tell him she was a Peabody bride. Unless she did so, how could he possibly realise that Fate had singled him out as her future husband-to-be? ‘I’m travelling to Dawson with six other young ladies. We’re all …’
    â€˜Lilli! Lilli! Look what I’ve got!’ It was Leo and he was racing towards her, something