Midnight Star by Catherine Coulter

Author:Catherine Coulter [Coulter, Catherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 1986-11-13T20:00:00+00:00

16

Captain O’Mally’s dining table provided an interesting assortment of people and an array of equally fascinating foods. Heavy chandeliers glittered above the long, rather narrow room. Gilt-framed paintings covered the three oak walls, the other being all glass. The tables were covered with pristine white cloths and graced with sparkling silver cutlery and fine English china.

“Most impressive, Captain,” Chauncey said as he held her chair.

“Del insisted on the best,” Rufus said, giving her his most charming leprechaun grin. “As he usually does,” he added, sweeping his gaze admiringly over her peach silk gown.

The dinner menu was printed in a flowery script, and many of the myriad dishes were unfamiliar to Chauncey. Broiled plover, hare chops in salmi, venison steak . . . The list seemed endless.

Delaney saw her blink and said softly, “The brains, love? Please, forgo those if you wish. I already dread that you have a surfeit. I would recommend the braised chicken with oyster sauce.”

“Thank you,” she said, not meeting his eyes. She could still see him staring at her aghast when she had burst into tears but two hours before. He had held her, not demanding an explanation, not demanding anything from her. He had already taken everything, she thought now, her thoughts confused and desolate.

Delaney gave his order to the white-coated waiter who stood at his elbow, then leaned back in his chair, a crystal goblet of dry white wine in his left hand. He responded equably to a question from Colonel Dakworth, and commented suitably on the rather stormy situation now brewing over which city should become the capital of California. But he didn’t give a damn about any of it at the moment. Such a puzzle she was, he thought, listening to his wife’s soft voice as she asked the waiter for the braised chicken. A beautiful, responsive puzzle. He saw Brent Hammond, a friend, a gambler, womanizer, and something of a pirate, eyeing her speculatively. You haven’t a prayer, old man, he wanted to tell him, his lips curling sardonically. Not a prayer. Brent hadn’t been able to come to their wedding. And Captain O’Mally’s first mate, Mr. Hoolihan. His look wasn’t at all speculative in the manner of Hammond’s; it was rather assessing, and utterly emotionless. Odd man, Hoolihan, he thought. If he could force his mind away from Chauncey, he wanted to find out more about him.

Dakworth, the blustering old fool, was expounding in fine style to Reverend Divine about the thieves and villains the viligantes had routed out of San Francisco two years before. Delaney didn’t care what exaggerations the bewhiskered old man propounded, he just wanted the damned meal over with and Chauncey back in their stateroom.

The talk remained animated throughout the long meal, with tales from Reverend Divine about his trials with the filthy, savage Indians. “Ugly brutes” seemed to be his sniffing refrain. Chauncey, Delaney observed silently, ate next to nothing. What was she thinking? he wondered. Was she mortified that she had experienced sexual pleasure

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