THE Prairie DREAMS Trilogy

by Susan Page Davis

  The cabbie stopped before a row of fashionable shops whose windows displayed clothing, home furnishings, and exotic foods. The door opened, and Peregrin blinked at the driver.

  “Are we there?”

  “We are, sir.”

  Peregrin hopped out on the sidewalk, and then he saw the sign, high on the side of the four-story brownstone edifice: METROPOLITAN. This was the hotel, all right.

  “Where do I go in?”

  The cabbie nodded toward a door topped by an awning. “Yonder, sir. Your hotel takes up an entire city block. The bottom is all shops and such.”

  “Very impressive.” Peregrin stroked his new mustache as he deciphered the man’s words. The accent was going to be a challenge; he could see that.

  “Well said, sir. I’ll give your luggage to the boy.”

  “Oh, yes.” Peregrin swiveled and saw a young man in a smart uniform approaching. He took out his purse and paid the driver, adding an extra coin.

  “I say, how would I go about finding out whether an acquaintance has sailed for England yet?”

  The cabbie frowned. “Hmm. Not sure. P’raps you could ask at the desk. Some of these desk clerks can work wonders.”

  Peregrin approached the door gingerly. A man in a long livery coat smiled at him.

  “Good day, sir. Welcome to the Metropolitan.”

  “Er, thank you,” Peregrin said. “Do I just…”

  The uniformed man opened the glass-paneled door for him. “Right up the stairs to the lobby, sir.”

  “Thank you.” The carpeted stairs muffled his footsteps. The curved mahogany railing was a wonder, smooth as glass. On the walls along the stairway were paintings of harbor scenes and the city skyline. Peregrin emerged into a chamber as large as a ballroom and as elegantly furnished. The settees, chairs, and side tables appeared to be European-made. Paintings hung in ornate gilt frames, and a magnificent chandelier illuminated the cavernous room.

  In a daze, he glided toward the counter that must be the check-in desk. He’d never imagined Americans could build such a lovely hostelry. It was as good as anything in London—more ostentatious than most. He could understand why traveling aristocrats made this their temporary home.

  “May I help you, sir?”

  “Oh yes, thank you. I should like apartments, please. A bed-sitter if you’ve one available.”

  “Certainly, sir.” The clerk went on to list several options.

  Peregrin ventured uncertainly, “And what is the price of the three-room suite, as opposed to the bed-sitter?”

  The clerk smiled as though the British accent amused him. At any rate, Peregrin was a bit put off by the prices. He wasn’t bad at mathematics—he fancied that was what made him a moderately successful gambler—and he was fairly certain he’d done the mental conversion correctly. He hadn’t expected to pay so much for a room. If he paid full price, his funds would run low within a few months, and he might be on this side of the ocean for years.

  Perhaps he could stay here for a few days while he got his bearings, and then move to a less-expensive establishment. That was it. He felt better just working that out.

  “Thank you. I’ll take the bed-sitting room, please.”

  “And how long will you be with us, sir?”

  “Oh, well, what’s today?” He flushed at having shown his ignorance, but after all, he’d just stepped off a steamship.

  “It’s Tuesday, sir. June second.”

  “I expect I’ll stay until Friday, then.”

  The bellboy arrived with his luggage, and the desk clerk gave the boy Peregrin’s room number. Before turning away, Peregrin put forth his question on how to locate someone in as vast a city as New York.

  “Did he stay at this hotel, sir?” the clerk asked.

  “I’m not sure. A lot of our friends do, but I expect there are a great many hotels in New York.”

  “Hundreds. Do you know the name of his ship?”

  Peregrin winced. “No, afraid not. Only that he planned to come overland from Oregon this spring and sail from New York.”

  “Oh, if he’s coming that far, I doubt he’s reached the city yet,” the clerk said. “If you like, I can check our registry for the last month and our upcoming reservations and send word up to your room.”

  “Thank you.” Peregrin slipped him a quarter-dollar and hoped it was enough.

  “Oh, and you might inquire with the steamship companies,” the clerk added. “I can’t do that myself—haven’t time—but you might hire someone to do it for you.”

  Peregrin mulled that over as he followed the bellboy up another flight of stairs and down a hallway that seemed longer than the carriage drive to Stoneford—the place his sister hoped one day to rule over as mistress. Lady Stoneford. He hoped he wouldn’t disappoint her. He hated to let Merry down, and she had ways of making one uncomfortable if that happened. Though he loved her, they were very much alike in that way. He had no doubt she’d manage to punish him somehow if he failed, even from across the Atlantic.

  CHAPTER 18

  Gently, gently,” Millie called, her distress jacking her voice higher than its normal alto timbre. They’d torn over the road to town, with her urging the driver to make all speed possible, though it jostled her uncomfortably in the wagon bed. She was glad David wasn’t conscious during that mad ride.

  She looked away as the men lifted David’s inert form from the back of the wagon onto a wheeled cot. But she had to look back to make sure they were handling his leg carefully, so as not to cause any further injury. If she had anything to say about it, David would get the best care available.

  The fellow helping the farmer and his son looked to be in his late twenties. He moved swiftly but seemed to know what he was doing.

  “Are you the doctor?” she asked.

  “Yes ma’am. Are you the wife?”

  “No. I’m a fellow passenger, but I was previously acquainted with this gentleman. Please give him your best care.”

  The doctor straightened and glanced at her. “From what your driver tells me, I should hurry out to the scene of the stage accident.”

  Millie glanced uneasily at the farmer and back to the physician. “I understand. But if you can just take a quick look at Mr. Stone’s leg and make sure the bleeding’s stopped. His pulse is faint—you must have seen that yourself when you examined him a moment ago. You wouldn’t want him to bleed to death while you drive to the crash.”

  “I’ve got to be going,” the farmer said.

  “Help me get him inside,” the doctor told him. “I’ll send my wife to get someone to go with me, but I can’t move this fellow to my examining table alone.”

  As she followed them into the house, Millie spotted a modest signboard hanging on the wall beside the front door: MARTIN LEE, M.D. A pretty young woman stood in a doorway, watching anxiously as they wheeled the cot past her.

  “Jane, hop over to Billy Croft’s and see if he can help me. There’s been a stagecoach accident on the river road, and this man is the first of several casualties. And if his boy can go round to Dr. Nelson’s, I’d appreciate it. We need all the medical help we can get.”

  Millie noted how quickly the woman moved to obey, without questioning her husband about the situation. Apparently Mrs. Lee was used to taking her husband’s orders.

  Millie didn’t wait for an invitation but trailed the men into a room set up for patient care. The farmer helped transfer David to the table and then left, but within five minutes the man called Billy appeared.

  “Want I should ride out there, Doc?” he asked from the doorway.

  Dr. Lee glanced at Millie. “Mrs. Evans, was it?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “What do you think? Should we send many men to the accident?”

  “I think they’ll need help. There were nine of us in the coach when it overset. I saw the driver and shotgun rider moving about afterward—they pulled me from the wreckage. But most of the others are injured, I fear.”

  “They’re off
the road then?” Dr. Lee asked.

  “Yes. Down a steep hill—it will take some labor to bring them up.”

  “I’ll get my wagon and a couple other fellows if I can,” Billy said.

  Dr. Lee opened a cupboard and stuffed a bag with rolled bandages and some short sticks. “Take these. If Mr. Stone can wait, I’ll ride out in a few minutes.”

  Billy left, and the doctor turned back to David. “You done any nursing?” he asked Millie as he unbuttoned David’s waistcoat.

  “Some,” Millie said.

  “Wash your hands yonder.” The doctor nodded toward a washbasin on a stand in the corner and took a pair of scissors from a drawer. He began cutting David’s pant leg open without another word.

  Millie looked down at her hands. Blood and dirt caked her fingers. She poured water into the basin and used the bar of soap in a dish next to it. After pouring water over each hand, rinsing thoroughly, she dried them on a towel that hung at the side of the stand.

  “All right, what can I do for you?” she asked.

  “Go to the kitchen and see if my wife has a kettle of hot water on the stove. She usually keeps one going for me.”

  It took Millie only seconds to find the kitchen and lift the steaming kettle from the stove. She carried it back to the treatment room. Dr. Lee had David’s lower leg exposed and was swabbing at it with cloth. He nodded toward the chest of drawers that held his instruments.

  “Take one of those pans on top and pour hot water into it. Get a clean cloth from the second drawer and soak it for me.”

  Millie obeyed and watched him clean the blood from David’s leg, revealing a jagged gash with blood still oozing from it and a stark bit of white bone poking out.

  “This is pretty mean looking. There’s wood in the wound—at least one long sliver, maybe more. I’ll have to take it out. I won’t put the cast on his leg until the swelling’s down, but I need to close this wound.”

  “It’s broken,” Millie said, feeling rather stupid.

  “Yes, and badly so.” Dr. Lee glanced up at her. “Can you hold his leg for me? Rotate it like this?” He showed her how she would need to hold it so that he could work on the wound with both hands.

  Millie stepped closer and reached out to help. A wave of embarrassment washed over her. She was touching a man’s…limb…with her bare hands. She glanced at Dr. Lee, but he was intent on preparing his instruments. He picked up a needle and some sort of thread or fine cord.

  “I’m not bad at threading needles,” she said.

  He kept on with his task. “I’m not bad at it either.” He poked the end of the thread through the eye of the needle. “But thank you.”

  He didn’t seem to notice her flushed face but bent over his work.

  Hurried steps came through the house, and Millie looked toward the doorway.

  “Hold still,” Dr. Lee said sternly.

  She turned back to the job, but she’d gotten a glimpse of Mrs. Lee, entering briskly.

  “Can I help?”

  The doctor didn’t look his wife’s way but asked, “Do I need to go out to the stagecoach?”

  “Dr. Nelson is going now. Billy and two other men saddled up to ride with him and assist.”

  Dr. Lee grunted. “Well, we’ll probably have more patients coming in soon. I might do better to stay here and be ready when they arrive. Prepare the bed in the isolation room for this man.”

  Mrs. Lee whirled and left the room.

  “Steady now,” said the doctor. “I think I’ve got the bleeding stopped, but I need to set that leg.” A moment later he clipped his thread and straightened. “All right, you can let go.”

  Millie released her hold on David’s leg and arched her aching back.

  “I don’t think he’ll wake when I shift his leg, but I want you to hold on to him anyway, just in case. I had a man sock me in the kidney once when I thought he was out cold.”

  Millie looked down at her hands, found a finger that wasn’t too bloody, and brushed back a lock of her hair. “Just tell me what to do, Doctor.”

  When he roused, David was lying on a bed, or at least something more comfortable than the ground. The pain in his leg was unbearable. He ground his teeth together and sucked in a breath. The movement caused a sharp pain in his side, and his head felt as big as a bushel basket, but all of that was dwarfed by the agony of his leg.

  He peered through slits between his eyelids. A lantern cast harsh light over the room. When he moved his head, a rustling sound warned him that he wasn’t alone. Millie appeared at the bedside. Her hair was disheveled, escaping from the knot on the back of her head, and dark circles rimmed her eyes, but if possible, that only made her prettier.

  “Mr. Stone.”

  He blinked, but she still looked a bit hazy. “Where are we?”

  “In a doctor’s house on the outskirts of Independence.”

  “We crossed a river. Not the Missouri.”

  “One of its tributaries.”

  He started to nod but winced and kept his head still. “I was injured.”

  “It was after the river crossing. The horses were skittish, and they ran away.” She pushed back a lock of auburn hair, and he watched, fascinated, as it fell forward again.

  “I remember.” He wanted her to talk some more. Her voice was gentle, musical, familiar. “What’s the damage?”

  “Your left leg is badly broken. Dr. Lee fears you have at least one broken rib as well, and you may be concussed. But you still came out better than the stagecoach.”

  “Oh?”

  She nodded. “It’s matchwood. Two of the passengers died.”

  That knowledge landed on him like a rock on his chest. “Not Andrews?” For some reason, he hoped the dandy had survived. Maybe it was because the fellow was likable—and they both admired Millie in their own way.

  “No, he’s stove up some, but he’ll be all right. I didn’t see the worst of it. Once Gip and the driver hauled me out, I went up where you were.”

  David vaguely recalled her telling him about Gip on the hillside.

  “The gentleman from Illinois was one of the deceased. I’m not sure of the other. I think he was one of those in the center when we crashed.” She pulled a chair close to the bedside and sat down.

  “Well. At least you came through all right.”

  Her face went sober. “Yes. I’m very thankful.”

  “How long have I been here?”

  “Since yesterday afternoon.”

  He stared at her until his headache made him close his eyes for relief. “Yesterday? We’ve been here a night already?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where did you stay?”

  “After I’d done what I could to help Dr. Lee, his wife took me to an inn about a mile away. I spoke for a room for you, for when you can be moved.”

  Just the thought of being moved again clamped David’s teeth shut tightly.

  “Dr. Lee wanted to keep you here a few days,” Millie said matter-of-factly. “But a couple of men were worse off than you, so he said to find a place where I can tend to you, and he’ll call on you daily until you’re better.”

  “Where you…” David broke off, startled. Did the doctor think Millie was his wife? It seemed he’d be plagued with that assumption until they parted company. And when would they part company, anyway? “You mustn’t delay your journey for my sake.”

  She smiled indulgently. “And who would care for you? I don’t mind. Really.” Her face flushed, and he thought she was quite beautiful.

  He closed his eyes to shut out the sight of her. He didn’t want her hovering over him and blushing like a schoolgirl. And he certainly couldn’t let her take on his personal care. Surely he could hire an experienced manservant….

  Nonsense, he told himself. A valet in the rambunctious young town of Independence? Only a deluded man would think that.

  The truth hit him squarely between the eyes. Millie couldn’t go on without him, short of lifting the price of a ticket from his wal
let. She was stuck here until he gave her the means to leave. He looked beyond her, seeking a bedside table or a dresser.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “I just…wondered where my things are.” He shifted enough to look down at his own body, covered by a sheet and light blanket. Unless he was mistaken, he wore nothing but his underclothing. Now it was his turn to blush.

  “Your trousers were beyond repair,” Millie said bluntly. “The rest of your things are over there.” She pointed over his prone form, toward the other side of the room, but David hadn’t the energy to roll over. Even if he had the strength, whatever entrapped his injured leg would probably prevent that.

  She bent closer and smoothed the edge of the blanket. “Don’t worry, Mr. Stone. All of your belongings are safe. When you’re ready to get up again, I can go to a haberdashery and find some suitable trousers to replace the ones you had on in the crash. Or perhaps you have others in your luggage. Gip brought it here last night, but no one has opened it.”

  David could think of nothing to say but “Thank you.”

  After all, she was not the only one in need. Yes, she was dependent on him now. But even more desperately, he needed Millie.

  CHAPTER 19

  Millie’s eyelids drifted down, and she jerked suddenly awake. She shifted in her chair and straightened her shoulders. She supposed it was foolish to sit here at David’s bedside all night. She ought to go across the hall to her own hotel room and sleep for a few hours.

  But she couldn’t stand the thought of him awakening alone in the strange room and trying to move about. Dr. Lee had not yet put the cast on his leg, and David might do further damage if he thrashed around.

  No, she would stay here until morning, and then perhaps she could pay Billy, the young man who carried bags and did other chores and errands for the hotel owners, to sit with him while she got a nap. Uncomfortable as she was, she would rather stay in case David needed her.