Bride of the High Country Read online

  “But she warn’t no old lady, naw,’ suh,” he added, shaking his head.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Too young. Dressed fancy and not in black. Real pretty little blonde.” He chuckled, showing pink gums and missing teeth. “Popular lady, that one.”

  “Was someone else was asking about her? A man? Stocky? English accent?”

  Something in Tait’s voice put him off. The old man looked away and began refolding a stack of linens. “Don’ know ’bout that. Best check with George in the next car. He’ll know. You ask George.”

  Realizing he would get no more out of the skittish fellow, Tait tipped him with one of his few remaining coins, then moved on to the second Pullman.

  His nerves were humming now—with both excitement and alarm. He knew he was getting close. He could feel it. Feel her.

  But he could feel someone else getting close, too. And he didn’t know why.

  He found the second George carrying a bucket and rags down to one of the forward compartments. A noxious odor and the wails of a crying child came through the open doorway, and Tait could only guess what catastrophe awaited the harried fellow. Stopping the porter before he ducked inside, he quickly asked about the blond woman traveling alone.

  “Miss Hathaway,” the young Negro man said, clearly distracted by the distasteful task awaiting him. “Room three. But she stepped out to the ladies lavatory. You want, you can wait in the gentleman’s smoking room at the end of this car, or in the Parlor Car at the end of the train. That’s where I sent her brother. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

  Tait debated going to the smoking room, then realized if the man posing as Margaret’s brother had followed her from New York, he might have seen Tait following her, too, and would recognize him. That would put the follower at an advantage, since Tait had never seen him and had only a secondhand description of what he looked like. Better the man not know Tait was on board.

  After checking that there was no one coming down the narrow aisle behind him and that the porter was still in the forward compartment, Tait hurried down to room three. Hoping Margaret hadn’t locked the door, he tested the brass knob.

  It turned.

  He opened the door and slipped inside.

  Three flickering candles in polished brass fixtures bolted to the walls lit the empty compartment. A sleeping berth was folded up against the ceiling on one side of the narrow room. Opposite it, a second berth had already been lowered and was ready for use. Below each bed was a couch, and on the exterior wall a framed mirror separated two windows trimmed in black walnut with elaborate inlays. The deep pile carpet and French plush upholstery on the couches gave the small room the ostentatious elegance of the fancier saloons and gambling halls on the steam riverboats. Tait wasn’t surprised that these newer sleepers were referred to as Pullman Palace Cars.

  He studied the room for anything he might recognize as belonging to Margaret. Several dresses and a shawl hung from hooks on the wall beside the door. A green cape lay over the arm of the couch, a matching bonnet on the seat. The valise on the floor looked new. It was open and empty.

  It could be any woman’s room.

  But he recognized a faint scent in the air. Distinctive. Flowery. Exotic. Something he had only ever noticed when he was near Margaret.

  That surge of energy coursed through him again. He’d found her. Finally. Smiling grimly, he braced a shoulder against the wall for balance and crossed his arms. Now all he had to do was wait for her to come back.

  Beyond the window, fewer lights showed as the train rolled out of the city and into open countryside. They would have to stop every twenty miles or so to put water in the tenders, but he would wait until they reached a major town before he pulled her off the train. Bigger place, more resources. Harrisburg, maybe. But that wouldn’t be until late tomorrow morning. Which meant he had to get through the next few hours in a private compartment with a woman who had haunted his thoughts for months—and who also happened to be another man’s wife.

  It promised to be a long night.

  * * *

  Margaret—Lucinda now, she had decided for certain—finished her wash and repacked her toiletries into the valise. She felt immeasurably better but so exhausted she could scarcely think. The euphoria that had carried her through the afternoon had faded, leaving her hollow with fatigue. As soon as she got back to her compartment, she would climb into her berth and sleep until Pittsburgh. Or at least for the next twelve hours.

  With her new dress draped over one arm, the valise of railroad shares gripped in her other hand, and wearing her new sleeping gown under her new hooded robe—a soft, luxurious velvet that was so generously cut it completely obscured her figure—she left the washroom and lurched down the narrow, rocking walkway of the Pullman car.

  Thankfully she reached her compartment without being seen in her casual state of undress. Glad she had left the door unlocked—everything of value was in the valise that never left her side, so why bother?—she pushed open the door and stepped inside, then almost screamed when she sensed movement behind her.

  Before she could turn, a big hand clamped over her mouth and an arm grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back against a solid body. “Shh.”

  Her legs went weak. The valise and the dress hit the floor.

  “You’re a hard woman to find, Miss Hamilton,” a familiar husky voice said in her ear.

  Rylander! Her heart seemed to stop, then come pounding back with a fury. In wild panic, she twisted, kicked, clawed at the hand over her mouth.

  But the arm holding her didn’t loosen even when her heel caught his shin.

  “Stop this, Margaret! You know I won’t hurt you.”

  She knew no such thing but could see struggling was getting her nowhere. Breathing hard through her nose, she stopped fighting but kept her fingers dug into the hand over her mouth.

  “If I let you go, you’ll behave?”

  “Id owa na roo!”

  “Does that mean yes?”

  She tried to stomp his foot and missed.

  Apparently taking that as a “yes,” he released her and took his hand away, but she saw it hovering at the edge of her vision and knew he would clamp it back over her mouth if she tried to scream.

  Instead she whirled and slapped him in the face. “Get out of my room!”

  He jerked back, then grabbed her wrist when she tried to strike him again. He gave it a shake. “Stop it, Margaret. Now!”

  A new fear gripped her. She glanced fearfully around. “Is Doyle here?”

  “No.”

  Twisting free, she snatched her dress from the floor. “So why are you?”

  “We need to talk.” He took the garment from her hands, hung it on the last hook, then swept a hand toward the couches. “Sit, please.”

  “I will not.” To hide the shaking of her limbs, she crossed her arms over her uncorseted torso and hiked her chin. “I prefer Lucinda now—and if you don’t leave immediately, I’ll scream.”

  “I’d suggest you not do that.”

  “You would further manhandle me?”

  “I would silence you. One way or another. Please.” Feet braced as the train rolled into a curve, he nodded toward the couch behind her and smiled. Not pleasantly. “Or we could tussle a bit more. Up to you.”

  In defiance, she chose the other couch under the ready berth, knowing it hung too low for him to duck beneath easily. Plopping back onto the cushions, she once more crossed her arms atop her heavy robe. “Why are you here?”

  “Doyle asked me to find you.”

  “Still doing his dirty work, I see.”

  His eyes darkened from smoky blue to an ominous gray, the way clouds did just before a storm broke. But his voice remained calm. “He was worried about you. We both were. We thought you might have been
abducted.”

  “Abducted? By whom?” She made an impatient gesture to show how little credence she gave that notion, then saw the way her hand trembled and hurriedly lowered it. “I wasn’t abducted. I left.”

  “Why, Margaret?”

  “Lucinda. And I’ll not discuss it with you.”

  “Where are you going? Do you even have a destination?”

  She glared at him in stony silence, wondering how he had found her and what she had to do to escape him a second time. The man was relentless. She should have bought a gun in Philadelphia. No one would have blamed her for shooting a man who broke into her sleeping compartment. She smiled, picturing his shock when she fired.

  With a sigh, he braced his arms on top of the bed above her and rested his weight on one leg. The action spread his frock coat wide and lifted the bottom edge of his silk vest, and she saw that his wrinkled shirt had slipped partially free of his rumpled trousers. For such a fastidious man, he was a mess. She took comfort in knowing she was probably the cause of it.

  He rubbed a hand over his unshaven face, muttered something, then dropped his arm back on the bed. “A man has been asking about you. He followed you onto the train and even now might be somewhere on this car. Why?”

  Two men had been following her? And she had seen neither one? On reflex, she looked around, half expecting to see a shadowed figure lurking in a dark corner. “Who? What does he look like?”

  “I haven’t seen him, but the porter described him as being stocky and having gray hair. He said he was British and his nose was bent, which probably means it had been broken in the past, and he was missing two fingers on his left hand.”

  “Oh, God.” She pressed a palm to her chest, trying to staunch the sudden terror flooding through her. Smythe!

  “You know him?”

  Why is Smythe here? How did he find me? She struggled to suck air into her constricted lungs. How had he even survived?

  “Margaret?”

  She almost cried out when Rylander touched her. Hooking his bent forefinger beneath her chin, he tilted her head up, forcing her to look at him. “You’re safe with me. Whoever he is, I won’t let him hurt you.”

  How? If fire hadn’t stopped Smythe, nothing would. She started to jump up, but her legs were so wobbly she couldn’t rise, and Rylander was in the way. “The door. Make sure it’s locked. And close the drapes. He’s here? You’re sure of it?” Her skin crawled as if his hands were on her. Bile churned in her throat.

  Rylander checked the door and closed the drapes, then came back to where she sat shivering against the cushions. The wood frame groaned when he sat down beside her. He tried to keep a space between them, but the couch was small and he was a big man. “Who is it? Tell me who he is so I can protect you.”

  Protect her how? No one could protect her. The man could rise from the dead. “All these years . . . I-I thought it was over.” She took a deep shaky breath and tried to calm her breathing. But her heart continued its erratic beat. “How did he even find me?”

  “If I could, he could. But the question is why?”

  Horne.

  Horne had known Smythe. They had shared the same proclivities. The same children. She shuddered. If Horne had recognized her at the engagement party, he might have told Smythe, especially if they were still up to their same disgusting habits. But why would he care about an adult woman? It was children they both preferred.

  Fingers closed over hers. Squeezed hard. “His name, Margaret.”

  She stared down at his hand—big, capable—the knuckles enlarged from hitting other men’s faces. Rylander had been a fighter. He was bigger and younger than Smythe. He might be able to protect her. But why would he? She was nothing to him but his partner’s runaway bride.

  She looked up and met his calm, stone gray eyes. She had always sensed that behind them was a decent—if irritating—man. She thought of the times Rylander had tried to curb Doyle’s cruelty. He had stood up for Widow O’Reilly and Mrs. Throckmorton, hadn’t he? Maybe he would do so for her.

  It was a risk she had to take. She had no other choice.

  “I only know him as Smythe. The last time I saw him was fifteen years ago in a burning building. I thought he had died in the fire.”

  “In Manhattan?”

  She could feel his mind probing hers, could see by the fierce concentration of his gaze that he was carefully analyzing every bit of information she gave up.

  Tait Rylander had been both the brains and the brawn of the Rylander-Kerrigan partnership. Doyle had provided charm and the ruthless ambition of a born survivor, as well as a delight in twisting an adversary’s weaknesses to his own advantage. That’s how it had worked with her, she now realized. Sensing her need for security, he had wrapped her in jewels and luxury to give the illusion of protection, then had begun to bend her to his will.

  Rylander was much more direct. He didn’t manipulate—he ordered. She liked it no better, but at least there was honesty in it.

  So she would be as honest as she dared in return. “In Five Points.”

  “Five Points?” His dark brows lifted in surprise. “You’re Irish?”

  “I was. Until it was beaten out of me.”

  “By Smythe?”

  She nodded but didn’t mention Mrs. Throckmorton. Her guardian had only sought to improve her life, to elevate her to a better, safer place. Unlike Smythe, with his carefully placed blows designed to break the spirit but not the skin.

  She shuddered, remembering the way he breathed while he did it—like a rutting animal—a raspy, wheezing sound coming out of his open, wet mouth every time his hand came down. Even years later, when she was walking down the wealthy streets of Manhattan and the wind swirled through the awnings and past the narrow alleys, it would make that same high-pitched whistling noise, and it was all she could do not to break into a run.

  But she wouldn’t tell Rylander that. To do so would open herself to questions about her past and expose the fear that pressed against the edges of her mind. She sensed once she gave up her secrets, he would tell Doyle and her almost husband would know exactly how to control her.

  “Does Doyle know you’re Irish?”

  “No. He wouldn’t have married me had he known.”

  “So you lied to him.”

  “I didn’t have to. He never asked.”

  Abruptly Tait rose and paced the small room, his steps uneven as he fought the rocking of the car, the tips of his tousled black hair almost brushing the low ceiling. “So you married him strictly for his money.” He stopped pacing and glared at her. “How does a woman as intelligent and capable and beautiful as you sell herself like that?”

  Was he truly that naïve? Had he no idea the horrors that awaited the Irish when they walked off the immigrant “coffin” ships. Or how vulnerable a woman all on her own with no money, no prospects, no protection was? She sighed, feeling even emptier now that the rush of fear was past. “As I told you before. The most important things to me are security and safety. Money provides that.”

  “Safety from men like Smythe?”

  “And from cold and hunger and fear.”

  That sharp gray gaze was so intrusive she had to look away. “Who are you really, Margaret?”

  This was a mistake. The cost of his help was too high—he would demand to know everything about her and she couldn’t bear that.

  Gripping the armrest for balance, she rose. Every breath was an effort. Her head ached, her stomach hurt, and her thoughts were so sluggish she could scarcely put together a sentence. “I’m Lucinda Hathaway. And I wish to retire. Please leave.”

  He continued to stand there, taking up most of the narrow space, studying her as if she were some sort of exotic, vaguely dangerous insect he wasn’t sure what to do with.

  “I’m very tired.” She gla
nced pointedly at the door.

  “You won’t be safe here alone.”

  Surely he didn’t expect to stay in the compartment with her? The notion was both terrifying and oddly comforting. “I’ll be perfectly fine.”

  “What about Smythe?”

  “I’ll lock the door.”

  He smiled in that unpleasant way again. “He’s gone to a lot of trouble to find you. Now that he has, do you think a locked door will stop him?”

  A coil of fear tightened in her chest. Would Smythe really try to break in? On a crowded train? He would never get away with it . . . unless he came in the middle of the night . . . when everyone was asleep, and the sound of the moving train muffled noise, and she was too weary to stay alert. He would be on her before she even knew he was there. “I’ll push something against the door.”

  “What? Everything is bolted down.”

  “Then what do you suggest?” She wanted him to say it. If she asked him to stay, that would acknowledge that she needed him and she refused to do that.

  He smiled again. But this time it was a sad half smile that carried neither threat nor malice. It softened his features and made him seem almost handsome in a sharp-angled, hard-eyed sort of way. “I mean you no harm, Margaret.”

  “No? You came all this way to bid me a safe journey, did you?” Fearing she might burst into tears, she turned her back on him to reach up onto the bed where the porter said the ladder was. “And it’s Lucinda now,” she added, patting the bedding over her head. Where was the cursed ladder?

  “I just want the truth.”

  “The truth?” Suddenly it was too much. So furious and frightened and exhausted she wanted to scream, she whipped toward him. “Well, here’s a truth for you, Mr. Rylander. Life is hard and cruel and will drag you down at every turn if you let it. But not me. You know why? Because I’ve seen the worst it has to offer and I’ve survived it. Just as I’ll survive this, and anything else you or Doyle or Smythe can throw at me. There’s your truth! Now leave.”