Stranger:. Zoe Archer
in the details of his appearance. Even though he was the only black passenger on the ship, more than just his skin color made him stand out. His scholar’s face, carved by an artist’s hand, drew one’s gaze. Arresting in both its elegant beauty and keen perception. A neatly trimmed goatee framed his sensuous mouth. The long, lean lines of his body—the breadth of his shoulders, the length of his legs—revealed a man comfortable with action as well as thought. Though Gemma had not been aware how comfortable. Until she saw the revolver held easily, familiarly in his large hand. A revolver trained on her. She’d have to do something about that.
“Mr. Graves,” she murmured, shutting the door behind her.
Behind his spectacles, Catullus Graves’s dark eyes widened. “Miss Murphy?”
Despite the fact that she was in danger of being shot, it wasn’t until Graves spoke to Gemma that her heart began to pound. And she was absurdly glad he did remember her, for she certainly hadn’t forgotten him. They’d met but briefly. Spoke together only once. Yet the impression of him remained, and not merely because she had an excellent memory.
“I thought you were out,” she said. As if that excused her behavior.
“Wanted to get a barometric reading.” Catullus Graves frowned. “How did you get in?”
“I opened the door,” she answered. Which was only a part of the truth. She wasn’t certain he would believe her if she told him everything.
“That’s not possible. I put an unbreakable lock on it. Nothing can open it without a special key that I made.” He sounded genuinely baffled, convinced of the security of his invention. Gemma glanced around the cabin. Covering all available surfaces, including the table where he had been working moments earlier, were small brass tools of every sort and several mechanical objects in different states of assembly. Graves was an inventor, she realized. She knew her way around a workshop, but the complex devices Graves worked on left her mystified.
She also realized—the same time he did—that they were alone in his cabin. His small, intimate cabin. She tried, without much success, not to look at the bed, just as she tried and failed not to picture him stripping out of his clothes before getting into that bed for the night. She barely knew this man! Why in the name of the saints did her mind lead her exactly where she did not want it to go?
The awareness of intimacy came over them both like an exotic perfume. He glanced down and saw that he was in his shirtsleeves, and made a cough of startled chagrin. He reached for his coat draped over the back of a chair. One hand still training his gun on her, he used the other to don his coat.
“Strange to see such modesty on the other end of a Webley,” Gemma said.
“I don’t believe this situation is covered in many etiquette manuals,” he answered. “What are you doing here?”
One hand gripping her derringer, Gemma reached into her pocket with the other. “Easy,” she said, when he tensed. “I’m just getting this.” She produced a small notebook, which she flipped open with a practiced one-handed gesture.
“Pardon—I’ll have a look at that,” Graves said. Polite, but wary. He stepped forward, one broad-palmed hand out.
A warring impulse flared within Gemma. She wanted to press herself back against the door, as if some part of herself needed protecting from him. Not from the gun in his other hand, but from him, his tall, lean presence that fairly radiated with intelligence and energy. Keep impartial, she reminded herself. That was her job. Report the facts. Don’t let emotion, especially female emotion, cloud her judgment.
And yet that damned traitorous female part of her responded at once to Catullus Graves’s nearness. Wanted to be closer, drawn in by the warmth of his eyes and body. An immaculately dressed body. As he crossed the cabin with only a few strides, Gemma undertook a quick perusal. Despite being pulled on hastily, his dark green coat perfectly fit the breadth of his shoulders. She knew that beneath the coat was a pristine white shirt. His tweed trousers outlined the length of his legs, tucked into gleaming brown boots. His burgundy silk cravat showed off the clean lines of his jaw. And his waistcoat. Good gravy. It was a minor work of art, superbly fitted, the color of claret, and worked all over with golden embroidery that, upon closer inspection, revealed itself to be an intricate lattice of vines and flowers. Golden silk-covered buttons ran down its front, and a gold watch chain hung between a pocket and one of the buttons. Hanging from the chain, a tiny fob in the shape of a knife glinted in the lamplight.
On any other man, such a waistcoat would be dandyish. Ridiculous, even. But not on Catullus Graves. On him, the garment was a masterpiece, and perfectly masculine, highlighting his natural grace and the shape of his well-formed torso. She knew about fashion, having been forced to write more articles than she wanted on the subject. And this man not only defined style, he surpassed it.
But she was through with writing about fashion. That was precisely why she was on this steamship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
With this in mind, Gemma tore her gaze from this vision to find him watching her. A look of faint perplexity crossed his face. Almost bashfulness at her interest.
She let him take the notebook from her, and their fingertips accidentally brushed.
He almost dropped the notebook, and she felt heat shoot into her cheeks. She had the bright ginger hair and pale, freckled skin of her Irish father, which meant that, even in low lamplight, when Gemma blushed, only a blind imbecile could miss it.
Catullus Graves was not a blind imbecile. His reaction to her blush was to flush, himself, a deeper mahogany staining his coffee-colored face.
A knock on the door behind her had Gemma edging quickly away, breaking the spell. She backed up until she pressed against a bulkhead.
“Catullus?” asked a female voice on the other side of the door. The woman from earlier.
Graves and Gemma held each other’s gaze, weapons still drawn and trained on each other.
“Yes?” he answered.
“Is everything all right?” the woman outside pressed. “Can we come in?”
Continuing to hold Gemma’s stare, Graves reached over and opened the door.
Immediately, the fair-haired woman and her male companion entered.
“Thought it was nothing,” the man said, grim. “But I know I’ve caught that scent before, and—” He stopped, tensing. He swung around to face Gemma, who was plastered against the bulkhead with her little pistol drawn.
Both he and the woman had their own revolvers out before one could blink.
And now Gemma had not one but three guns aimed at her.
“Astrid, Lesperance,” said Catullus Graves as though making introductions at a card party, “you remember Miss Murphy.”
“From the trading post?” demanded the woman. Gemma recalled her name: Astrid Bramfield. She had exchanged her mountain woman’s garb of trousers and heavy boots for a more socially acceptable traveling dress. Yet the woman had lost none of her steely strength. She eyed Gemma with storm-colored eyes cold with suspicion, an enraged Valkyrie. “Following us all the way from the Northwest Territory. She must be working for them.”
Them?
“Let’s give her a chance to explain herself,” said the other man, level. Though he didn’t lower his gun. Nathan Lesperance, Gemma recalled. He wore a sober, dark suit, as befitting his profession as an attorney, but the copper hue of his skin and sharp planes of his face revealed Lesperance’s full Native blood.
A white woman, an Indian man, and a black man. Truly an unusual gathering. One Gemma was glad she’d followed.
“I retrieved this from her,” Graves said, holding up the notebook.
“What does it say?” Astrid Bramfield asked sharply.
Graves