Again the Magic (Wallflowers 0.5)(90)

The scene at the docks was a swarm of activity, with an endless forest of masts extending on both sides of the channel. There were coal barges, steamboats, and too many merchantmen to count. Crowds of burly, sweat-soaked dockers used hand-held hooks to move bales, boxes, barrels, and parcels of every kind to the nearby warehouses. A row of towering iron cranes were in constant motion, each long metal arm operated by a pair of men as they discharged cargo from the hold of a ship to the quay. It was brutal work, not to mention dangerous. She could hardly believe that McKenna had once earned his living this way.

On the far end of the dock, a kiln next to the warehouses was being used to burn off the damaged tobacco, its long chimney sending a thick stream of blue smoke into the sky.

“They call that the queen’s pipe,” Marcus said dryly, following the direction of her gaze.

Staring along the row of warehouses to the other end of the quay, Aline saw a massive wooden paddle steamer, easily over two hundred feet in length. “Is that the Britannia?”

Marcus nodded. “I’ll go find a clerk to fetch McKenna from the ship.”

Aline closed her eyes tightly, trying to picture McKenna’s face as he received the news. In his current disposition, he wasn’t likely to take it well. “Perhaps I should go aboard,” she suggested.

“No,” came her brother’s immediate reply. “They’re going to weigh anchor soon—I’m not going to take the chance of having you sail off across the Atlantic as an accidental passenger.”

“I’ll cause McKenna to miss his departure,” she said. “And then he’ll kill me.”

Marcus gave an impatient snort. “The ship is likely to launch while I stand here arguing with you. Do you want to talk to McKenna or not?”

“Yes!”

“Then stay in the carriage. Peter and the driver will look after you. I’ll be back soon.”

“He may refuse to disembark,” she said. “I hurt him very badly, Marcus.”

“He’ll come,” her brother replied with calm conviction. “One way or another.”

A hesitant smile worked its way past Aline’s distress as she watched Marcus stride away, prepared to do physical battle, if necessary, with an adversary who was nearly a head taller than he.

Settling back in the carriage, Aline pushed the curtain open and stared through the window, watching a marine policeman wander back and forth past rows of valuable sugar hogsheads piled six and eight high. As she waited, it occurred to her that she must look as if she had been pulled backward through a hedge, with her clothes rumpled and her hair a disheveled mess. She wasn’t even wearing proper shoes. Hardly the image of a fine lady visiting town, she thought ruefully, regarding her toes as she wiggled them inside the knit slippers.

Minutes passed, and it became warm and stuffy in the carriage. Deciding that the smell of the docks was better than the prospect of sitting in an enclosed vehicle with no breeze, Aline began to rap on the door to summon Peter. Just as her knuckles touched the paneling, the door was wrenched open with a violence that startled her. She froze, her hand stopped in mid-motion. McKenna appeared in the doorway of the carriage, his shoulders blocking the sunlight.

He reached out to grip her arm as if he were saving her from an unexpected fall. The urgent clamp of his fingers hurt. Wincing, Aline reflected that McKenna seemed like an utter stranger. She found it impossible to believe that this harsh-featured man had held and kissed her so tenderly. “What is the matter?” he demanded, his voice grating. “Have you seen a doctor?”

“What?” She stared at him in utter bewilderment. “Why would I need a doctor?”

McKenna’s eyes narrowed, and his hand dropped from her abruptly. “You’re not ill?”

“No…why would you think I…” As comprehension dawned, Aline glared at her brother, who stood just beyond him. “Marcus! You shouldn’t have told him that!”

“He wouldn’t have come otherwise,” Marcus said without a trace of remorse.

Aline gave him a damning glance. As if matters hadn’t been difficult enough, Marcus had now succeeded in making McKenna even more hostile. Unrepentant, Marcus stepped back from the carriage to allow the two of them a marginal amount of privacy.

“I’m sorry,” Aline said to McKenna. “My brother misled you—I’m not ill. The reason I am here is that I desperately need to talk to you.”

McKenna regarded her stonily. “There’s nothing left to be said.”

“There is,” she insisted. “You told me the day before yesterday that you were going to talk to me honestly, or you would regret it for the rest of your life. I should have done the same, and I am so sorry that I didn’t. But I’ve traveled all night to reach you before you left England. I am asking—no, begging you to give me a chance to explain my behavior.”

He shook his head. “They’re about to pull the gangway. If I don’t reboard within five minutes, I’m going to be separated from all my trunks and personal papers—everything but the clothes on my back.”

Aline gnawed at the insides of her cheeks, trying to contain her rising desperation. “Then I’ll come aboard with you.”

“And sail across the Atlantic without so much as a toothbrush?” he jeered.

“Yes.”