Darby: Bride of Oregon (American Mail-Order Bride 33) (12 page)

Darby’s legs couldn’t do it anymore. And she
couldn’t stomach touching the damp wall again, so she turned and leaned against
a side wall and bent until her knees pressed against the one opposite.

She would suggest to the proprietors that they
supply a chair to their next guest.

It occurred to her that the cell she occupied
seemed ancient. Rand had told her, once upon a time, that the tunnels and their
barbaric uses had been around for half a century. And she was pretty sure she
was standing in an original. But if Rand destroyed the cages in order to buy
some time, maybe he didn’t know about that particular cage. Maybe he wouldn’t
know to even look for her there, if in fact, he knew she was missing.

Another possibility niggled at her. And there, in
the dark, frightened out of her mind, she was ill-equipped to ignore anything.

What if…
What if he’d never destroyed any
of the cages because…he really was the monster he tried to convince her he was?
What if the Phantom really did sell innocent people to the sea captains?

What if that house had been purchased from all the
wealth he’d accumulated over the years, catching people in the traps below Jez’s
brothel? They’d been together for a long time…

Jenny’s words came back to her.
And those he
didn’t sell…he ate?

The idea was so ridiculous, she laughed. But what
about the rest? Was it so unlikely? Was he anxious to be Governor to clean up
the coastline? Or to spread his influence? With Oregon and Washington almost a
straight route across the ocean from China, he could monopolize the slave
trade…

She could see that Harrigan fellow plotting such
an evil scheme. But Rand? Was it only a coincidence that Hardy Jacobs, her
closest ally in Portland, had suddenly been sent down the coast on business?

And what Foster had said, just before he opened
the trap door, that
he had spared no expense?
Just who was
he
?
Harrigan or her own husband?

~ ~ ~

Rand couldn’t help but notice how Jez fidgeted
beside him. She worried at her lip. She rubbed the finger where the ring had
been. Her toe tapped. And since Jez was rarely nervous, he knew something was
wrong.

“Tell me, Jez. How did Darby take it when you
explained the plan tonight?”

She shrugged and looked out the dark window. “She
wasn’t too happy to be lured into the city, if that’s what you mean.”

“She never questioned your note? She left as soon
as it was delivered?”

Jez nodded.

“And she wasn’t frightened? To be involved in
something this dangerous?” He wished he hadn’t asked, dreaded the answer. He’d
been beating himself up for not explaining it all to her himself, but with
Harrigan watching so closely, he hadn’t dared get close to her without showing
his hand.

Jez laughed. “The
lass
was joking with the
Jeppsons when I left her.”

His stomach plummeted. He took Jez by the
shoulders and shook her. “She was still awake? Are you insane? She was supposed
to be unconscious before she went in the cage!” He considered turning around
and going back for his poor wife, but they might never know peace if he didn’t
go through with his plan. Harrigan had to be stopped—tonight!

Jez shook her head. “She’s a Scotswoman. A
fighter. I offered her the drink but she didn’t trust me by then. And I wouldn’t
worry about the Jeppsons. They open that cage, she’ll eat them alive.”

He released her shoulders and knocked on the roof
of the hack. It quickly slowed and stopped. “You left the Jeppsons to keep the 
rats away—”

“Just like you told me to—”

“You were supposed to give her a drink, explain
the plan, and only put her in the cage after she was asleep. You were told to
post a guard to keep away the rats, which should have included vermin like the
Jeppsons, while we waited for Harrigan. But you left her with the least
trustworthy scum you could find?”

At least Jez had the wits to keep quiet.

“I’m getting out here,” he said. “And you’re going
to go back to Darby. Put the drops in your flask and give it to her. Pretend to
drink it yourself, if you need to, so she’ll trust it. Then, you’re going to
confess that you fouled things up, that she was never supposed to know she’d
ever been in a cage. And you’re going to make sure she’s good and unconscious
before Harrigan gets there. Do you hear me? If she utters one word, this scheme
will fall apart. And all of us will end up dead. Do you understand?”

Jez nodded.

“And tell everyone to stay away from the lair. I’ve
got Elton locked up in the bedroom. She sent him to me, to make sure I was all
right. And his conscience was getting the better of him.” The irony made him
sick to the stomach. “I didn’t have time to explain it all, so I drugged him
and barricaded him inside the bedroom.” Rand climbed out, then leaned back
inside to look closely at Jez’s face. “Promise me you’ll fix this.”

She pretended to be offended. “I’ll fix it. There’s
plenty of time yet. Midnight is still hours away.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You’d better, Jezebel.
Because if you don’t, I’ll never forgive you.”

~ ~ ~

 Darby jolted awake and could have wept when she
realized the nightmare was real. In the constant flicker of oil torches, it was
impossible to tell how long she’d been underground. She might have nodded off
for a few minutes. The ache in her neck and back told her it had been longer.

She heard a distant commotion and hoped it wasn’t
more rats headed her way. Since her two guards had wandered off, she’d had to
defend herself half a dozen times when braver rats had scaled the board they’d
propped in front of the gate.

She wiggled her toes to make sure nothing had
gotten to her while she’d dozed. But the only thing that hurt below the knees
were her ankles.

Thankfully, the shuffle of human footsteps became
clear. She didn’t care who it was. Even if her disgusting captors returned, at
least she wouldn’t be alone with the four-legged creatures that roamed the
tunnels at night.

Two-legged monsters she could deal with. She hoped.

Darby couldn’t stop the tears. Walking would be
much easier if she could see where she was going, but she just couldn’t get the
water from her eyes. Most of her tears, she told herself, were from gratitude.
She was just so grateful to be out of that cage and moving farther and farther
away from the waterfront. She could walk for miles and not complain as long as
she kept in the same direction.

Away from the rats. And
him.

Elton’s hand was warm and firm and if she
stumbled, she knew he, at least, would catch her.

The two of them had been fleeing for ten minutes
and she still couldn’t believe what the tall man had told her, that it was her
husband himself who ordered the guards not to come if she called them. That she’d
been caught and locked in a cage on his orders.

She might have felt angry and vengeful if she wasn’t
so heartbroken. But thankfully, a welcome numbness inched over her like a
blanket of quick growing moss, and even the aches in her body had dulled.

According to her savior, Elton, Harrigan had
demanded proof that the Phantom was not Rand Beauregard, and if he wouldn’t
capture and sell the judge’s Scotswoman that very night, then Harrigan would
know the truth, and so would the world—that Rand Beauregard was a slave trader.

So the Phantom had agreed to the price. And once
he proved himself, Harrigan agreed to drop the matter and continue on as they
had, splitting the waterfront.

It was a small price to pay, apparently, to keep
Rand’s pockets full and his political ambitions alive.

The notion that she’d meant so little to him made
her feel insignificant as a leaf on the wind, and she wondered why Elton had
bothered searching for her.

“I just can’t believe it,” she whispered for the
hundredth time.

Elton ducked into a deeply recessed doorway and
pulled her in with him. “Here now. Rest for a minute.” He watched her closely
while she tried to catch her breath. “I had a hard time believing it myself. I
always trusted what he’d said, that he worked the tunnels to protect the
innocent. But I tell you, I heard it from his own mouth. And though he’d said
the same thing dozens of times before, I was shocked he’d ever say it about his
wife!”

Sometimes the monster has to be fed.
Yes.
She’d heard him say it too.

Elton grunted with disgust. “It scares me to think
how often he might have been feeding that monster when I maybe could have
stopped him.”

Darby held his hand a little tighter. “Don’t feel
bad. Now that we know, we’ll put a stop to this. Somehow. There has to be a way
to put a cease to it, aye?”

But she wasn’t really talking about Rand’s sins at
all—she was talking about her heart being turned inside out.

Finished with his devious errand, Rand stepped out
of a hack onto Ash Street. With his hood pulled forward, he searched the
shadows for spies and found a dark figure coming toward him at a fast clip. His
heart jumped just before he realized it was Shadow himself.

“She’s gone,” his friend said.

“Who’s gone?”

“The Scotswoman.”

Rand shook his head. “You must have checked the
wrong cage.”

“I am not wrong. Jez is searching everywhere. She
said she went back to protect the woman and found the cage empty.”

Dread flared through him, but Rand refused to
panic. He shouldn’t have been surprised. “No doubt the Jeppsons have decided to
sell her themselves. Find them.”

“The Jeppsons are accounted for…but there is more.”

“What is it?”

“Whatever you left in the Phantom’s lair has
escaped.”

His heart slammed against his ribs. “Impossible.”

Shadow nodded once. “I assure you, it was done.
There is damage to the door, from the inside.”

There was no time to ponder just how Elton had
managed that trick. There was no time for anything but action.

“I want all eyes on the waterfront, the bridges,
and the train station.” Rand ripped off his mask so he could breathe. “Now.”

~  ~ ~

Darby’s body betrayed her.

She’d assumed she could climb a bloody mountain if
it meant she was leaving that cage behind her. But the stitch in her side wasn’t
going away. And no matter how she fought it, she was forced to stop and lean
her hands on her knees. At least it was fully dark and few people were around
to notice.

They’d made their way into a neighborhood with
large homes and no alleyways to hide in. But even holding onto Elton’s arm wasn’t
enough to keep her upright anymore.

“You’re doing dandy, ma’am. Not far now.”

She hoped a little conversation would prolong her
respite. “Do you plan to take me up to one of these doors…and ask for
sanctuary…from the Phantom?”

He chuckled. “No ma’am. There is a safe house
around the corner. We can get help before anyone finds out who we’re running
from. We just have to get there before anyone thinks to look there. Hopefully,
Beauregard will think Harrigan stole you, and they’ll go after him first.”

Stole her. Like a pie on a window ledge.

The pain dulled but promised to return. She
ignored it and took Elton’s arm again. Luckily for her, she had a worse pain in
her chest to distract her from her side.

~ ~ ~

The street turned and sloped downward toward a
ravine. On the right, just before the bottom of the incline, was a plateau with
a small white house that fairly glowed in the dark. A single lantern burned
just inside the largest window.

“We’re lucky,” Elton said. “Someone’s inside.”

“And if they hadn’t been?”

“There are horses in the corral out back. Don’t
worry. We’ll be well away from here soon.” He led her directly to a blue side
door and knocked once, then twice again.

A dark figure came out from around the back. “Elton?”

“Masters.”

The other man nodded to her, then pushed the door
open and led the way inside. Elton was frowning until he noticed her watching
him. “It’s all right. We can trust Masters.”

Some sixth sense told her to run, but since she
wouldn’t get far before she’d be doubled over again, she had little choice but
to say a quick prayer and follow Masters inside. Elton followed and closed the
door. The snap of the lock sounded unnervingly final.

Masters gestured toward the wall behind the door. “You
know Porter.”

Darby hoped by the way she squeezed Elton’s hand,
he would know just how upset she was facing the Phantom’s guard. Unfortunately,
he understood and moved in front of her just as a shot rang out. The dear man
dropped to the ground in spite of her efforts to catch him, and a second shot
went off. She wondered why she felt no pain, then realized Masters had been the
one hit. He pulled his gun from his holster, but collapsed before he got a shot
off.

She scrambled around, praying she could reach his
weapon before she, too, was murdered. But the pressure of a gun barrel against
her temple froze her in her tracks.

“So, Mrs. Beauregard. Tell me what you think of our
lovely city, eh? Now that you’ve had the tour.”

At a quarter to twelve, Rand stood on the dock and
watched the river wash by. Peaceful. Predictable. God’s power in the form of
rushing, unstoppable water.

So much I might have done, with a little more
power…

The Willamette sluiced against the pylons. If God
was trying to give him inspiration, Rand couldn’t understand a word.

Was she in there? Somewhere beneath the black
surface of the water?

He shook his head and took a step back. He had to
count on the fact that Harrigan was much too greedy to let a valuable piece of
flesh go to waste. Besides, the man probably wanted it to haunt Rand’s every
waking minute, wondering what hell his wife was going through.

No. Harrigan wouldn’t have killed her. Even if she
would have fought like a hellcat—no, like a Scotswoman.

He also had to trust that a hundred men watched
the city. If anyone moved so much as a human-sized box, he would hear about it.
And he’d heard nothing at all. Either Harrigan didn’t intend to get her to
MacPhee’s ship—which was the only one due to leave in the morning—or someone
other than Harrigan had her.

Quick footsteps ran onto the dock and he turned to
find the Judge’s personal secretary hurrying toward him wearing an actual
cowboy hat instead of his well-recognized bowler.

“Poulson?”

The man flinched at seeing Rand’s mask for the
first time. “Yes, sir.”

“Nice hat.”

“Thank you, sir. The only disguise Shadow could
manage at a moment’s notice.”

“Thank you for answering the call but—”

“We’ve found her!”

Rand swallowed a lump of choking emotion. “Where?”

“She was put on a small steam boat quite far down
river. Though she wore a cloak, she was apparently very vocal. Shadow said you’d
know where they’d be going, but we’ve followed them just in case.” He seemed to
take a lot of pride in the word
we
. “No word yet, from that arena. I am
sorry.”

Rand clapped him on the shoulder and walked with
him away from the water. “You’re a credit to your hat, Poulson.”

The man grinned, then quickly sobered. “There’s
one more detail to relay, sir.”

“What’s that?”

“The man who put her on the boat...”

“Who?”

“Apparently a man named Porter.”

~ ~ ~

Jez was waiting in the lair.

Rand poked his head inside, ignored the mess, and
shouted. “Leave it and come on!”

The woman hurried to the door and began fiddling
with the key.

“Leave it, I said.” He took the key from her,
turned the lock—or what was left of it—and slipped it into his pocket as he
scurried up out of the tunnels to the waiting hack. Poulson stood near the
horses to make certain the driver waited.

“Good evening, Miss Carlton.”

“Good evening.” She gave Rand a strange look.

“Get in!” He lifted her by the waist to get her
moving, shouted directions to the driver, then leapt inside and pulled the door
closed.

Jez gave him the once over. “Well, someone’s
excited.”

“Yes. We’ve found her.”

She sat forward. “Where? You told the driver to
take you to Burnside.”

“Yes.” He watched out the window. They were
getting close.

“You found her on Burnside?”

“No. We’re taking a steamboat.”

She fell back against the carriage’s well-worn cushion.
“I will be nauseated if you make me ride in one of those, in the dark.”

“Be happy for me, Jez. I’ve located my missing
wife.”

“I’m very happy for you,” she said snidely. “But
you’ve already missed Harrigan’s deadline.”

“I don’t care about Harrigan.” He shrugged. “And
he won’t make the meeting.”

She lunged forward and grabbed his knees. “What
have you learned?”

He frowned at her. “I’m sure he knows by now that
the cage is empty. He has at least half as many spies as I do.”

She nodded. “I suppose you’re right.”

“Don’t worry, Jez. When I buy her back from
MacPhee, I’ll make Harrigan stand by while I sell her to Rand Beauregard for a
hefty profit.”

She snorted. “That will be a neat trick.”

He shrugged. “Maybe something else will come to
me.”

The hack slowed, turned, and rolled to a stop.
Rand climbed out and hurried to the waiting boat, then turned back when he didn’t
hear Jez following behind. “Hurry!”

She held onto the door of the hack and shook her
head. “Not in the mood to vomit tonight, love.”

“Get on the boat, Jez.” His tone left no room for
arguing. But as she passed him, he slapped her rump and grinned. “Don’t worry.
I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you, too.”