Lisa Bingham (9 page)

His stomach clenched as he slit open the note and read the cryptic note.

Neil crumpled the paper and shoved the slip into the pocket of his waistcoat.

Stay on your guard, old boy,
he told himself as he double-checked the chambers of his rifle. If someone had tried to kill Phoebe, it was only a matter of time before Louisa was in grave danger, as well.

A
s he bundled them into the closed carriage that he’d hired, and saw to the last of the trunks, Neil chafed at the delays that the women had already caused. He kept glancing at the teeming traffic, searching for the slightest hint of danger or a suspicious interest in the proceedings. The minutes multiplied until he felt they had made themselves so conspicuous they could have painted a bull’s-eye on the carriage.

For the life of him, he didn’t understand how anyone could amass so many possessions. He’d lost count of how many steamer trunks had been loaded so far. He’d already been forced to hire a wagon, since they could not fit in the carriage’s small boot. Thank heavens one of his army buddies, a wizened, wiry fellow named Francis Tucker, had arrived to help keep an eye on things.

“There’s altogether too many gosh dern things,” Tucker grumbled in a raspy voice, taking his spot near Neil’s elbow.

Neil had to agree. It was difficult enough keeping one eye on Louisa and the other on the surrounding crowd. Add to that a wagonful of luggage, a lady’s maid and a rambunctious dog, and he was wishing that he’d hired a full contingency of men rather than arranging for two old army buddies to help him out.

“What about Parker?” Neil asked, referring to a tall dour man who had received the second telegram.

“He’ll meet us in Boston day after tomorrow.”

“Good.” Neil nodded to the trunks. “As for those, get them loaded as quickly as you can. I want to be out of here before we become even more of a spectacle,” he muttered, as Louisa blithely handed him the dog and moved to climb into the carriage.

Growling in self-disgust, Neil wondered again if he’d lost his mind. No woman was worth this humiliation. He should leave for Oregon and concentrate on his cattle. But even as he thought of abandoning Louisa, the possibility that she could be hurt stopped him in his tracks.

For now, he had no choice but to stay a little longer. At least until Boston. Then he would decide once and for all if this enterprise was the best way to bring home his bride.

The ride to the station was made with a flotilla of wagons, but just as he’d feared, Neil found his ability to watch for unseen dangers hampered by the presence of the dog. At any other time he would probably have tossed the animal onto the seat and been done with it, but judging by the way Louisa watched him so intently, he was sure she expected him to do so.

“She’s beginning to like you,” she said, gesturing to the dog.

Neil clenched his teeth in irritation. Louisa’s comment was a bald-faced lie, and they both knew it. Bitsy was beside herself in her efforts to get free, wriggling and burrowing into his jacket, chewing at his gloves and losing no opportunity to nip a little deeper.

“Whatever possessed you to adopt such an animal?”

“Oh, I didn’t ‘adopt her,’ as you so delicately put it. I bought her from a pedigreed breeder.”

In Neil’s opinion, that made matters worse. Only a fool would pay money for such a nuisance.

“Why did you buy this particular dog?”

She shrugged. “For the company.”

Neil gestured behind them to the woman perched on the wagon seat, guarding Louisa’s belongings. “You have a maid for that.”

Louisa shook her head, making a tsking sound. “Even you must know that there are limits to the association that polite society will let me have with my maid. If I were to travel or visit another person’s home, Chloe would be relegated to the servants’ quarters.” Louisa smiled indulgently at the dog. “Bitsy, on the other hand, can accompany me anywhere. Besides, I’ve always wanted a pet.”

“Your father didn’t buy you one?”

She blinked at him uncomprehendingly. “My father?”

“The marquis.”

He saw a careful blankness shutter her eyes, and she glanced out the window. “No. My father was not prone to buying me pets.”

“What was your father prone to doing?”

She did not answer for some time, but finally said softly, “Leaving me.”

For a moment, the carriage was filled with an aching silence, one that made Neil remember the letters he’d received from this woman when she’d still laid claim to her real name.

She’d talked often enough of her loneliness and of being banished to the same servants’ quarters she’d mentioned, but why hadn’t he known she’d always wanted a pet?

Moreover, why had she never told him what she knew about her father? Neil was as familiar with Louisa’s early years and her faint memories of her mother as he was with his own. But never once had she spoken or written about her father.

Did she know anything about the man? Did she have an inkling that her father had come from the aristocracy? If so, had the information merely deepened her sense of abandonment and isolation?

“Do you miss your father?” Neil asked, wondering if she would flinch.

But again, she studied him with a face devoid of emotion. “No.”

Neil raised his brow. “That isn’t the answer I would have expected from such a dutiful daughter.”

She tipped her head to one side, then said, “My father had a talent for inspiring a sense of responsibility, but never affection.”

Bitsy continued to worry Neil’s thumb with her teeth, but he hardly noticed. Instead, he found himself gazing deep into Louisa’s eyes.

“Is that why you feel you must carry out the wishes of a husband you’ve never met?”

If she was surprised at the fact that he was privy to such knowledge, she didn’t let on.

“What would you have me do? Abandon all that I’ve chosen to be? Leave a defenseless girl without a guardian? Even you couldn’t be that heartless, Mr. Smith.”

Oh, but he could…and he would.

One day—one day soon—Neil would ask her to do just that. If Louisa was to be a slave to duty, then she’d best remember who had received her promises first.

Not a dead man.

But me.

Suddenly, he was glad they were going to Boston. The time had come for Louisa to see the life that she had doomed herself to live—one of rigid rules and social mores. Once there, Neil would be able to keep her sequestered and safely out of sight—a situation that would be demanded in any event, since Louisa was newly widowed. Once she discovered that she’d tied herself not only to the staid strictures of society but also to the obligatory prison of mourning, she would gladly turn to Neil for comfort.

And once she had begun to seek him out, it would be an easy enough matter to steal her away.

Louisa had a single goal in her mind as they arrived at the station.

She needed to get to the telegram office and check for messages. She had managed to send several notes to Phoebe while she’d waited for Charles to meet her in New York. Louisa had explained about the delay she’d encountered in waiting for her husband to arrive, and had begged Phoebe for news. But there had been no response.

Surely by now she would find a stack of telegrams waiting for her. Louisa reckoned her friend should be married and well into her new life at this point. It was imperative that she be given the news of Charles’s death and Louisa’s current situation.

But from the moment John helped her to alight from the carriage and handed Bitsy’s basket to Chloe, it was obvious that he was not going to let her out of his sight.

“I’ve sent the driver to check on the status of your personal railway car. Until then, you’ll need to wait in the station house, out of the heat.”

Away from the rest of mankind, he meant, Louisa thought to herself as she was hurried out of the warmth of the afternoon and into the ladies’ waiting room. However, to her delight, Louisa realized that he’d unwittingly taken her to the one place where he would not be allowed to follow.

“Mr. Smith,” she said in a low voice when several women gasped and one elderly lady began reaching for her smelling salts. “I’m afraid you’ll have to wait in the corridor.”

“Why?”

“Because it isn’t proper for you to be here.”

He scowled. “Why not?”

“Because this is a
ladies‘
waiting room.” When he didn’t respond, she hastened to explain, “Many of these women are in the midst of lengthy journeys and they take the opportunity to…relax their strictures a bit.”

When he continued to stare at her blankly, Louisa quickly cut her eyes to a woman in the corner who had draped a blanket over her chest. A pair of tiny feet peeked out from the colorful quilt, making it clear that she was nursing an infant.

A stain of color began to seep up John’s neck, and Louisa nearly laughed aloud in delight. Finally she’d found a way to unsettle the man.

“I’ll be just outside the door,” he said sternly. Turning on his heel, he marched through, slamming it behind him.

Chloe giggled, setting Bitsy’s basket on the floor. “I don’t think I’ve seen a man leave so quickly in some time,
madame.
”

“Nor have I.”

Since she’d just left the hotel, Louisa had no real need of the facilities to be found in the women’s parlor, but she began searching the lounge nevertheless. There had to be another way out. There just had to be!

To her delight, in the back room, where an area had been set aside to allow travelers to wash, Louisa found a narrow door. Turning the knob, she peered outside, seeing that she had unearthed a service entrance. A dim corridor led to several doors labeled Station Staff Only.

“Madame Winslow?”

Chloe stepped into the room just as Louisa was closing the door again.

“Is there something wrong,
madame?
”

Louisa tugged her gloves more securely onto her fingers. “No, not at all.” She took a deep breath, then said, “Chloe, I won’t be needing you until we board the train. Will you see to it that all of the trunks are safely stowed? I have a short errand to run.”

Chloe’s eyes widened. “But… I am sure Mr. Smith wants me to stay with you and…”

Louisa squeezed her hand. “Please. I have a private errand that I need to perform, and Mr. Smith won’t give me leave to breathe. I swear, I’m in no more danger of being hurt or kidnapped than Bitsy, but that man won’t see reason.” She smoothed her skirts and checked the angle of her hat in the mirror. “Remain in the ladies’ lounge for at least ten minutes. If Mr. Smith tries to retrieve me during that time, tell him I’m…indisposed and he should wait.”

“B-but—”

Ignoring her maid’s obvious distress, Louisa opened the maintenance door a crack and peered into the dim hallway beyond. Except for an elderly man mopping the floor at the far end, the area was empty.

Failing to alleviate the man’s obvious curiosity, Louisa slipped into the hall. With her head high, she traversed the length of the dusty floorboards to another door marked Exit.

Her heart was pounding as she stepped into the afternoon warmth.

Stiffening her resolve and her spine, she damned John Smith for doing this to her. She should be enjoying her newly found freedom. Instead, she was laden with anxiety and guilt.

Guilt?

No. She wasn’t guilty. She couldn’t be guilty. She hadn’t done anything wrong.

Other than steal another person’s identity.

Ahh. But that wasn’t stealing. She had the real Louisa Haversham’s blessing—which was exactly why she needed to get to the telegraph office. Phoebe had probably responded by now with news of her own life. Louisa needed to instruct her friend to send her messages to Boston from now on.

“What are you doing?”

Louisa jumped, squelching the instinctive gasp that escaped from her throat.

Damn the man. Damn him! Why couldn’t he leave her alone?

“M-Mr. Smith.” She inwardly cringed at the defensiveness that entered her tone.

“Yes, Mrs. Winslow?”

“I merely…”

“Yes?”

The man was so smug, so all-knowing. But what angered her most was that he’d been able to read her intentions so easily. Somehow, despite her careful planning, he’d known that she intended to escape his vigilance. She could only hope that he didn’t know why she had been so intent on finding a few minutes alone.

“I needed a breath of fresh air.”

“Wouldn’t it have been simpler to find it by returning to the ladies’ waiting room and leaving via the main door?”

“I felt faint, so I thought this route would be quicker.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

Darn it, why was the man looking at her as if she were a recalcitrant child? She was a grown woman, not a toddler to be reprimanded when she strayed too far.

“Mr. Smith, perhaps I should be honest with you.”

“That would make a refreshing change.”

She glared at him, but refused to respond to the comment. “I am a woman who needs solitude on occasion.”

“Then lock yourself in the ladies’ washroom and stay there a bit.”

Her hands curled into fists and she fought to control the urge to shout in irritation.

“I am not an animal to be penned up.” She huffed in frustration. “You have yet to prove to me that your efforts are even necessary. There have been no threats against me, no suspicious characters lurking in the shadows, no letters, no notes, nothing. Personally, I don’t know why you stay, unless you delight in tormenting me. You’ve been glued to my side for days and I’ve grown weary of you, Mr. Smith, completely and utterly weary. Indeed, I am beginning to wonder if you aren’t a danger yourself. You have yet to prove that Charles hired you, yet you have taken unprecedented liberties with me and my staff! Frankly, Mr. Smith, I am hesitant to allow you to accompany me from this point on!”

A throng of passengers from an arriving train streamed over the platform suddenly, so Louisa quickly dodged into their midst. As she did so, a sudden sound pierced the din of the crowd, and she screamed when a burning sensation stung her upper arm.

Dear sweet heaven, she’d been shot!

Within seconds, she felt a pair of strong arms whip around her waist and pull her to one side. Instinctively, she opened her mouth to scream again, but a hand clapped over her mouth. Then, before she could comprehend what was happening, she was pulled into a baggage storeroom and the door slammed shut.

Louisa struggled against her captor, wondering how one moment of defiance could erupt into such a disaster. She wriggled and kicked, all the while reaching for the hatpin that held her bonnet in place. She had just managed to pluck it free when an all-too-familiar voice whispered in her ear. “Quiet!
Quiet!
It’s me, Louisa!”