Jane Bonander (2 page)

Because of her rebellious ways, she’d spent more time in the device than most of the other women. It was a harsh and cruel punishment, not fit for criminals, much less helpless, hapless women. If the matron had thought to drive her mad by putting her in the box, she’d made a mistake, however, for each new form of punishment made Dinah stronger. But she knew of women who went into the box and were never seen again.

Once the box was shoved into the bowels of the dark, dank room and out of sight, the person being punished could go undiscovered for weeks. Months. It had happened before. An easy way to dispose of a troublesome patient whose family didn’t want her free. And with the matron on holiday herself, she would not be around to make sure Daisy had done her job.

It was nearly dawn, and everything was quiet when Daisy drew her last breath. Dinah expelled a sad, tired sigh and hugged her one last time. She put Daisy on the floor and undressed her, replacing the nurse’s clothing with her own. Then, with difficulty, she lifted Daisy into her arms, struggling to put her body into the box. She cringed and almost cried out when Daisy’s lolling head banged against the side.

Dinah placed the shackles around Daisy’s ankles and wrists, shoving away her anguish at having to treat the body so. She said a prayer for Daisy’s perfect soul, then crossed herself before closing the lid on the box and locking it.

She searched through Daisy’s travel bag, which was now hers, and gasped in surprise. “My bear,” she whispered, memories swamping her as she lifted the bear from the bag. She pressed her nose to the fur, its scent still familiar. She’d slept with the bear long before she’d come to Trenway, long after the time when a young woman should sleep with dolls or stuffed animals. The toy had been confiscated, along with everything else she owned, when she’d arrived here.

A week after that, Dinah saw one of the matron’s fat daughters wearing her own velvet cloak. The matron’s favorite nurse, a scrawny bitch with a pocked, red complexion, wore Dinah’s pink and lavender gown as she left the building one day. Even her new slippers were gone, and her newly stitched unmentionables. She had nothing but the rags on her back, which were forced upon her the day she’d arrived. Tears, memories, and emotion tangled in her throat. But Daisy had saved her bear. She gave it a squeeze, returned it to the travel bag and snapped the bag shut.

The squeaking wheels of the death cart as it rounded the comer en route to the basement brought her up short, forcing her heart into her throat. She searched the room, frantic for a place to hide in case the attendants glanced inside. Spying a pile of dirty laundry, she dove under it, burrowing deep. She pinched her eyes shut and held her breath.

The death cart stopped.

“Is this lamp supposed to be lit?”

“I don’t know. Looks like Jenkins’s travel bag, though.”

“Oh, yeah. She’s leavin’ tonight. Lucky whore. Wish it was me,” said one attendant.

“Yeah,” the other responded. “I wouldn’t spit in the face of an opportunity like that.”

Dinah heard the women shuffling about the room.

“Christ. Do you suppose someone’s in the box?”

Dinah’s heart nearly stopped.

The other attendant snickered. “Wanna find out?”

“Me? Hell, no. It ain’t my responsibility.”

Dinah heard one of them kick at the metal box. “Hey! Anyone in there?”

Both women cackled. “If someone was, they’d sure as hell be screamin’ to get out, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, they always do. I wonder where Jenkins went off to.”

“Who knows.”

“Should we grab this laundry while we’re here?”

Dinah clutched herself to keep from shaking. The smell from the linens began to claw at her throat, and she swallowed repeatedly to keep from retching, both from the odor and from her own fear.

The other woman snorted. “It ain’t our job.”

“You’re right. Well, Jenkins can’t go any place without her clothes. She’ll finish up in here. Let’s get this body to the basement.” The woman made a disgusted sound. “I ain’t fond of this job.”

“Yeah, but sometimes I’d rather take care of the dead. They ain’t nearly so much trouble as the loonies upstairs.”

Dinah waited until she was certain they were gone, then crawled out from under the laundry. She took a deep, purging breath. Her thoughts were scattered with fear of discovery, and she had to force herself to stay calm.

She quickly pushed the discipline chest into an obscure corner, hiding it behind chairs, chests, and mouse-eaten blankets, willing back feelings of guilt and tears of remorse.

After dressing in Daisy’s traveling clothes and extinguishing the lamp, Dinah crept from the building, Daisy’s travel bag clutched to her chest. Once outside, her pulse quivered in the crisp February air.

The train’s beckoning whistle blew in the distance. Pulling the hood of Daisy’s cape over her hair, Dinah hurried, head bent low, toward the sounds of freedom.

Lucas held the last board in place while Tristan hammered it. After they were done, they stood back and examined the long, low building, their warm breath forming clouds before their faces. Erecting a bunkhouse in February was no easy task.

“How many of the children do you figure will be able to sleep in here?”

“No more than ten. There are eight of them now; that gives us two beds to spare in case we find others.” Tristan pointed to a thick grove of oaks. “I want to build a stable over there, but I don’t want to start it until the children return from the reservation school. They can help with it.”

Lucas stroked his chin and shook his head. “It’ll take longer if the children help.”

Tristan dropped the hammer into the tool chest and wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. Despite the cool air, they had each worked up a sweat.

“Doesn’t matter. I would have had them help with this building if there had been time, but they need a place to sleep when they get here. I hated like hell to have them sleeping in the stable last summer, but there wasn’t time to do anything else. I want to start on the addition to the house as soon as possible, too. By next winter, they’ll have rooms there.”

“It sounds as if you’d like to arrange to have them schooled closer to home.”

“I’m working on it.”

Tristan shaded his eyes against the harsh February sun and squinted at the temporary bungalow they’d finished. “I don’t imagine they’ll mind sleeping out here, but damn it, Lucas, it makes it look like I’m running an orphanage, and I’m not. They’ll all be Fletchers soon enough, and they will all live like Fletchers, not like orphans being given a handout.”

“Each has a hell of a lot more now than he did when we found them,” Lucas offered, “thanks to you. They consider you their hero, you know. Especially Little Hawk. Do you ever think you’ll break him of his nasty habit of picking pockets?”

“He can always become a politician.”

They both laughed, and Tristan’s smile lingered as he remembered his first meeting with the boy with the crippled foot. He’d watched him work the streets of Sacramento, picking shoppers clean. When Tristan had grabbed the little guttersnipe by the ear and hauled him into an alley, the lad pretended Tristan was hurting him and screamed loud enough to bring the law.

“Is that what you want to do? Bring the police?” Tristan had asked, close to the boy’s ear. “How will you explain the bounty bulging your pockets?”

Little Hawk’s black eyes had snapped with intelligence. He had a quick tongue and a foul vocabulary. In the end, though, he’d come with Tristan willingly. Not that day, certainly, but over the next week, Tristan continued to witness his behavior until the day another gentleman, not nearly so generous as Tristan, had hauled Little Hawk off to the sheriff. After allowing the boy to fidget uncomfortably for a satisfactory period of time, Tristan intervened, claiming responsibility for the boy’s actions. Little Hawk had been the first child to come and live on the ranch.

“I’ve had a good life, Lucas. I want to give a little back.”

“You had a good life in spite of Zelda Fletcher?”

To this day, Zelda’s name filled Tristan with immeasurable anger, and not only because of what she’d done to him. She hadn’t seemed happy unless she made everyone around her miserable. Including his father. Especially his sister. “I despise her more for what she did to Emily than for anything she did to me. Or even my father.”

Lucas sputtered a sound of disbelief. “Combing the countryside for homeless half bloods wouldn’t have anything to do with learning about your real mother, now, would it?”

They hadn’t discussed his lineage openly. Tristan had wondered when Lucas would bring it up. Discovering that the woman who had given him birth had disposed of him and his twin brother like garbage had breathed new life into Tristan’s complacent one. Learning that his brother had been left to die and was miraculously found by a kindly trapper made Tristan realize how lucky he’d been, in spite of the woman who had raised him.

“Knowing Wolf and I could have been two orphaned half bloods bordering on delinquency was reason enough for me to do something, Lucas. What I see in the eyes of those children I could easily have found in myself.”

Lucas emitted a sigh. “Aw, and you refuse to call yourself a hero.”

In spite of himself, Tristan allowed a reluctant grin. “Kiss my ass.”

Lucas feigned an adoring look. “Ooooh, with pleasure, my lord.” Sobering, he added, “Having eight extra children around all spring and summer will put a burden on Alice. She says she won’t mind the cooking, but Leeta senses Alice doesn’t feel up to it.” He muttered an oath. “She’s nearly sixty, Tristan. She’s got problems she’d never complain to you about. Like her gout. Did you know she suffers from gout?”

Tristan felt a squiggle of discomfort. Alice Linberg had been old and a part of the family since he could remember. He didn’t like to think about his life without her. She’d had the warmth and compassion Zelda hadn’t.

“She’s never complained to me about anything.”

“And why would she? She’ll be making your breakfast the day she keels over and dies.”

Tristan vowed to lighten her load. The problem would be getting Alice to agree to it.

“Anyway, Leeta’s already offered to help as much as possible with the children and in the house.”

“Leeta deserves better than you. Why she puts up with you I’ll never know.” Tristan lifted the extra boards off the ground as if they were twigs, and swung them onto his shoulder.

Lucas picked up the tool box and followed him to the smithy. “Jealous?”

Tristan couldn’t stop his smile. They’d been over this dozens of times before. “Not of the noose she has around your neck.”

Lucas uttered a laugh. “I’ve told you before, you pitiful bachelor, it’s only a noose if you’re miserable, and I’m a happy man.”

Coralee’s defection so close to their wedding date still burned in Tristan’s gut. He’d done a complete turnaround since. “Marriage isn’t a natural state for a man.”

“Didn’t you say you’ve offered the new nurse marriage?”

“But that’s different,” Tristan explained, ignoring Lucas’s expression of disbelief. “It’s only an incentive. David has assured me that this woman I’ve hired is obedient, even-tempered, and reliable.”

Lucas’s shoulders shook with quiet laughter. “You’ve described your hounds.”

Tristan hid his frown. So he had. “What difference does it make? Apparently she’s also comely, compassionate, and badly in need of funds. Hell, I’ll even destroy the agreement if she works out and promises to stay. She can have the money in any case, as long as Emily gets a few years of good, constant care.”

“But why marriage, Tris? Just offer her the same agreement without the wedlock.”

“Women need to feel safe. Secure. Hell, I don’t expect to bed her. I’ve assured her of that much.”

Lucas muttered an oath. “That’s the craziest logic I’ve ever heard. Do you know what’s wrong with you?”

“I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

“You’re a good man, Tris. You’re generous, you have a good sense of humor when you allow it to show, you’re kind to children and animals, but you have one major flaw.”

Tristan eyed Lucas. “I keep you around?”

“No, you always think you’re right.”

Tristan shrugged. “I am.”

“Let me get this straight. You’re going to have a wife, but you aren’t going to sleep with her?”

“Happens all the time. You’ve been living on the frontier too long, Lucas. Mistresses are the most natural possession a man has.”

Lucas snapped his fingers in front of Tristan’s eyes.

Tristan batted his hand away. “What are you doing?”

“Just wanted to make sure your brain hadn’t gone numb,” Lucas answered, shaking his head.

“I know what you’re thinking, but I’ve got it all worked out. She understands the arrangement and has agreed to it. No one’s going to get hurt.”

Lucas’s chuckle was gleeful. “I’d love to see you eat those words.”

Lucas’s young son, Miguel, waved and ran toward them. One of his arms was in a sling because he had sprained it falling from a tree.

“Seeing Miguel reminds me of something, Tris. Having those eight extra children around, plus my three, will probably mean lots of accidents, especially if they’re going to be working with hammer and nails. Who’s going to tend to those, and what happens if there’s an outbreak of something?”

Tristan entered the smithy and dropped the wood beside an old battered table. “You worry like an old woman.”

“Something I picked up from you, no doubt.”

Tristan shook his head. “The nurse can surely handle a few scrapes and bruises. I expect she’ll be a great deal of help.”

“Ah, Tristan, Tristan.” Lucas ambled toward the big, square door. “When have things ever worked out the way you’d planned?”

At that, Tristan had to laugh. “The gods are bound to take pity on me and turn things in my favor one of these days.”

“I wouldn’t place a bet on that,” Lucas countered.

“You should. You’d make money. I think this new nurse will be the answer to all our prayers. With Emily, with Alice, and with the children. She’ll be a calming influence on all of us. I can feel it in my bones.”