Cherished (3 page)

But I’ll show them all,
Edward
thought gleefully as he rubbed his sweating palms on his pants.
I’ll marry her off to the richest businessman in the western
United States, and ride his coattails to the top.
There would
be no more small-time profits for Edward Tobias, no sir. From now
on, words like
comfortably established, prominent, and
well-to-do
would no longer suffice to describe him. He would
be a millionaire, a tycoon, a magnate, just like John Breen
himself—all within a year, if the marriage went ahead as planned.
And why shouldn’t it? John Breen, after meeting Juliana only that
once, had made up his mind to have her, and Edward would see to it
that the girl accepted his offer. She had better not get it into
her head to be difficult about it either, for Edward would have
none of that. John Breen had invested in the Tobias factories a
year ago in a small way, his capital helping to spur them on to
previously unthought-of success, but once he married Juliana, he
had promised to open doors for Edward that would guarantee him
wealth beyond most men’s wildest imaginations.

And the marriage would do wonders for his
daughter, Victoria, Edward reflected, glancing over at the
dark-haired girl snoring lightly against the upholstered seat. She
hadn’t withstood the journey near as well as Juliana. Only passably
pretty at her best, Victoria looked much the worse for wear after
their long, weary days of travel. Her olive skin shone with oily
perspiration and her hair hung limply against her neck. Still,
though her lips were straight and thin, her chin a shade pointed,
and her voice a trifle shrill, she had a neat figure and well-bred
manners, not to mention her pleasing ability on the pianoforte and
with an embroidery needle. All attributes that would someday be
valued by the right man, Edward was certain, if only Juliana was
not there to dazzle and distract him. No, Victoria would never
again be a wallflower once she was free from comparison with her
spectacular cousin. And with Juliana married and settled in Denver
with John Breen, Edward knew it could not be long before his
Victoria would find herself the object of some appropriate suitor’s
attention.

He settled back beside his wife and her
fluttering fan, content with himself and his expert arrangements
for the future, dreaming of the mines and lumber mills and railroad
shares he would soon own, possibly as many as John Breen
himself.

The saloon in Denver
, Juliana
decided,
will be the perfect place to begin my inquiries
.
The only trouble was, how would she manage to elude Aunt Katharine
and Uncle Edward long enough to manage it? If she was caught ... A
knot tightened inside her stomach at the thought of what would
happen if she was discovered going into the saloon. She had already
been forced to promise Uncle Edward she wouldn’t try to find Wade
and Tommy, and if she was discovered doing anything as scandalous
as entering a saloon to ask about them she would have to endure the
most horrible censure. But it was worth the risk, Juliana told
herself, as she unbuttoned the top button of her dress trying to
alleviate the effects of the heat. She had to find Wade and
Tommy—and this visit to Denver might be her only chance.

“Juliana, fasten that button!” Aunt
Katharine’s furious whisper made the girl jump and hastily obey.
Her aunt was glaring at her, her face puffed out with
disapproval.

“I’m sorry, Aunt Katharine. But it’s so
dreadfully stuffy.”

“Try to remember that you are a lady and
behave like one! You don’t see Victoria undressing herself in
public, do you?”

Victoria is half dead— and too frightened
of you to wiggle her toes without permission,
Juliana thought,
with a pitying glance at her slumbering cousin. “No, ma’am,” she
said.

Life would be easier, she acknowledged, if
she were more like Victoria—biddable, cowed by authority, terrified
of breaking any of society’s conventions. The only problem was,
much as Juliana tried, she couldn’t get the knack of decorous
behavior. She laughed out loud when the Reverend Davis sneezed at
the high point of his Sunday sermon, rushed to help when the
serving maid spilled soup on the dining room floor, and carried on
elaborate conversations with Aunt Katharine’s lapdog, Charlotte,
conversations so outrageous and nonsensical that the Tobias family
could only stare at her as if she had gone mad.

“It’s that mother of hers,” Aunt Katharine
frequently remarked in an undertone to Victoria, unaware that
Juliana overheard several times. “She was a wild, disgraceful young
thing, and you mark my words, some of that has rubbed off on poor
Juliana, despite our best efforts. Why, just look what’s become of
her brothers—you can’t tell me there isn’t a bad taint in her
blood!”

When she heard things like that, it was all
Juliana could do not to explode with anger. Usually she stopped
whatever she was doing and left the room without a word, retreating
to her own pretty bedroom on the second floor of the Tobias home.
She would sink onto the bed and try to conjure up memories of her
home back in Independence before Mama and Papa had died, and
especially of her mother, whose past as a dance-hall girl before
she married Papa had always been the subject of so much whispered
gossip and contempt. It had been nine years since her parents’
deaths, and during that time, since Uncle Edward had come to fetch
her east, the life she had led in Independence during the wagon
train days, with Mama and Papa and Wade and Tommy all living
together above the busy general store, had mostly faded into fuzzy
memories. She could still, when she closed her eyes tight and
concentrated hard, see Mama’s sad, pretty face with her yellow hair
and pale lime-green eyes as she worked so busily packing supplies
for the families and traders setting out for the West. And she
could see Papa outside helping to load the wagons and horses with
the gear, or sitting down to supper with them when the store was
finally closed for the day, and the curtains were drawn against the
setting sun. He would wink across the table at Juliana and say,
“Peanut, eat every crumb now, you’re far too thin. You want to grow
up to be a beauty like your mama, don’t you?”

And then there were Wade and Tommy, several
years older than she, both boys handsome and energetic and filled
with mischief. They had helped Papa vigorously in the store, but
they had never liked the monotony of town work. “We want to be
scouts,” they used to say, listening in rapture to the tales of
buffalo herds and river crossings, Indian raids and fierce
desperadoes, related by travelers returning from the West, who
stopped in Independence and were all too happy to share their
adventuresome tales with any who would listen. “We want to cross
the Cimarron River and sleep beneath a Texas sky.” The bustle and
commotion of thriving Independence held no allure for Wade and
Tommy. Horses and cattle, wide-open spaces, gunfights, and buffalo
hunts had captured their young fancies.

But nine years had passed since Juliana had
seen her brothers. Mama and Papa had been killed, shot by drunken
outlaws trying to rob the store, and Uncle Edward had come to
Independence to take charge of the orphans. He’d wanted to fetch
all three of the Montgomery children back to St. Louis with him,
but Wade, aged fifteen, and Tommy, two years younger, had refused
to go. They’d quarreled horribly with Uncle Edward about it. When
Juliana begged to be allowed to stay in Independence with them,
Uncle Edward had steadfastly refused, and even Wade and Tommy had
insisted that their ten-year-old sister go to St. Louis and be
raised “like a lady.” She would live with Aunt Katharine, they told
her, Papa’s own sister, in a fine house, with pretty clothes, and a
governess to teach her, and her cousin Victoria for a playmate. It
wouldn’t be right for them to raise her. They were going to leave
Independence and head for Texas. They wanted to catch wild horses,
start a ranch. Someday, they told her, they’d have the grandest
horse ranch in Texas and build her a fine house. Then she’d come
and live with them.

Only ten, and heartbroken by the death of her
parents, Juliana had agreed to be separated from her big brothers,
thinking with childish optimism that they would soon come east to
visit her, and could perhaps be convinced to stay. But it hadn’t
worked out that way. Wade and Tommy had not kept in touch. At first
there had been letters posted from various towns south of the
Arkansas, but then the letters had become few and far between. The
last one had come from someplace called Payville, Texas, when
Juliana was twelve. Then all correspondence had abruptly
stopped.

Several years passed during which time she
hadn’t known where Wade and Tommy were or what they were doing. But
slowly, slowly, the life she had led in Independence with all of
them together had grown distant and blurred. One day, when she was
fourteen, Uncle Edward informed her in disgust that she was never
to mention those “no-good” brothers of hers again. They had become
desperadoes, he said, savage, roaming criminals who robbed
stagecoaches for a living. She hadn’t believed him, not one word,
until he had shown her the newspaper account detailing one of the
robberies. “The Montgomery gang” was known throughout the
Southwest, Aunt Katharine had lamented in horror. If anyone were to
find out about them, well, coupled with Juliana’s mother’s past,
the results, she told her sobbing young niece, would be
disastrous.

Juliana was forbidden ever to speak her
brothers’ names again.

They think I’ve forgotten all about Wade
and Tommy,
Juliana reflected as the train sped across the
plains toward the looming peaks of the Rockies. But how could she?
She could still picture Wade, so smart and tough, the one who had
taught her how to defend herself against the blacksmith’s bullying
son, the one who had given her piggyback rides to and from school
each day. And Tommy, with his golden hair the exact same shade as
Juliana’s, and mischievous eyes of bold, sparkling blue like
Papa’s. He had had a favorite shirt of blue and yellow plaid, she
remembered, which he’d worn nearly every day, except when Mama
managed to get it away long enough to wash it. Tommy had taught her
how to ride anything on four legs, shoot a row of tin cans off a
fence, and cheat at cards without anyone guessing. Full of tricks
had been Tommy, as quick-witted and lighthearted as Wade had been
ingenious and determined. They had been happy-go-lucky boys back
then, full of high spirits and with minds of their own, but Papa
had always been able to keep them firmly in hand. To think that
they were outlaws now ... Juliana swallowed past a lump in her
throat. When she found them, things would be different. And she
would
find them. Even if she had to sneak circles around
Aunt Katharine and Uncle Edward to do it.

As if reading her thoughts, Aunt Katharine
suddenly glanced over at her niece. “Juliana,” she said in a low
tone. “I want you to renew your promise.”

Juliana forced herself to meet the piercing
gaze that stabbed at her across the aisle.

“Ma’am?”

“Promise me that you won’t attempt to locate
those scoundrel brothers of yours while we’re in Denver.”

Uncle Edward started, and turned his
protuberant blue eyes upon her as well. Shorter than Aunt Kate by a
good four inches, he was a fat, paunchy man with a face as round as
a melon’s and a thatch of wiry graying hair he kept carefully
combed back from his brow. He was not a particularly intelligent
man, but he was a shrewd one, possessing a keen instinct for
business, a fondness for good sherry, and a habit of studying his
thumbs. Punishment from him had always been swift and firm when
Juliana had misbehaved as a child: hours spent alone in her room
without any supper—or a favorite toy or possession taken from her
and never returned. But Aunt Kate’s retribution had been worse than
anything Uncle Edward had ever done, for Aunt Kate did not forgive.
She had a way of staring at you until you felt as big as a pin, and
she would do it for weeks and weeks after the slightest infraction,
treating you with withering contempt and ice-cold disdain until
life in the Tobias house became totally unbearable. Those were the
times when Juliana daydreamed about running off with Wade and
Tommy, far, far from the great formal house in St. Louis, with its
rules and orderliness, its somber-faced servants, its elaborate,
silent meals, and most of all its austere mistress’s frosty
displeasure.

“Promise me, Juliana,” Aunt Kate insisted,
exactly as if her niece were still a recalcitrant ten-year-old. “We
must have your word.”

“But ...” Juliana began, squirming
uncomfortably in her seat.

“No buts.” Uncle Edward pointed a finger at
her. “Give us your word.”

Outside, the Colorado prairie raced by.
Inside the coach, her aunt and uncle both stared at her, Uncle
Edward frowning, Aunt Kate glaring with that haughty, expectant
look she wore whenever Maura was late bringing in tea.

Juliana took a deep breath. “I promise.”

They exchanged satisfied nods. Then they
smiled at her.

“That’s a good girl,” Aunt Kate approved.
Uncle Edward went back to his sheaf of papers.

What they didn’t know was that beneath the
folds of her taffeta skirt, two fingers had been crossed when she
issued her promise.
It didn’t count
, she told herself,
untying the ribbons of her hat, and smoothing her hair. She was
free to do as she pleased. And she would be pleased to make
inquiries about the notorious Montgomery gang as soon as she
arrived in Denver.

She didn’t dare think what she would do if no
one in Denver had heard of the Montgomery brothers and had no idea
where they might be. Someone had to know something, and she would
simply continue asking until she found the answers she sought.