Peregrin liked that idea. Why shouldn’t he march right up to Stone and introduce himself? They did have a social connection, and he could use that to gain the man’s confidence. Of course, he’d have to make up a story explaining his presence in the middle of North America, but that shouldn’t be too difficult.
If they traveled eastward together, Peregrin could watch for an opportunity to complete Merrileigh’s commission unobtrusively. Maybe David would fall off a moving train in some isolated part of the wilderness. And who would know if he hit his head as he fell—or before?
“Does this mean he can travel?” Millie stood in the doorway of David’s hotel room, after having been summoned by Dr. Lee.
“Yes,” the doctor said, “I think he’s ready. You’ll take the train to St. Louis, not a boat?”
“We thought we would,” David said.
Millie said hesitantly, “There’s been talk of disease spreading on the steamboats.”
“Yes, and I thought it would be simpler to take the railroad. Of course, we’ll have to cross the Mississippi by steamer, but that shouldn’t be so bad. Mrs. Evans will make sure I’m comfortable, won’t you?” David smiled at her across the room.
“Of course.” Millie entered and stood at the foot of the bed. It was so good to see David looking happy and eager to get on with life.
“I am going to remove the cast now,” Dr. Lee said. “Mrs. Evans, would you be able to get me a large basin or box to put the plaster in? I don’t want to make too big a mess. You might want to bring a broom as well.”
“I’d be delighted.” Millie dashed down the back stairs to the kitchen and found a large enameled wash pan. In it she placed a dustpan and a couple of rags.
Mrs. Simmons was chopping onions at her work table, and she eyed Millie testily. “What are you up to?”
“The doctor’s taking the cast off Mr. Stone’s leg.”
“Ah. I suppose that means the two of you will be leaving us soon.”
Millie wanted to say, “I hope so,” but that would be rude, so she said only, “Perhaps.” She grabbed a broom and scooted back into the stairway with her unwieldy load.
Was she really eager to leave Independence? David, she knew, could hardly wait to depart from this hotel. When they left here, they would also separate, if not immediately, then surely after they crossed the Mississippi. She’d come to dread the day.
Lately he’d grown more solicitous of her, taking pains not to cause her extra work. She’d praised him for taking on his own care and becoming self-sufficient once more. But the truth was, she missed spending time with him. More than two weeks had passed since the last time she’d read aloud to him. David had gone up and down the stairs slowly, but unassisted, the past two days. Without the cast, he’d be chafing to resume his travels.
When she got back to his room, Dr. Lee had already begun to cut through the plaster and had removed several large chunks, which he had placed on a newspaper.
“Ah, there you are. Thank you, Mrs. Evans.” He dropped the next section into the wash pan.
Millie dumped the debris he’d already created into the pan and concentrated on not looking at David’s limb while the doctor exposed it. She felt her cheeks flush anyway and decided sweeping the floor would give her a good reason to look elsewhere.
“It would be wise to take a few extra days here to exercise a little more,” Dr. Lee said to David. “In moderation of course. Walk down the street tomorrow morning and get a glimpse of the town. Perhaps buy your train tickets for a few days hence.”
“I suppose we could do that,” David said, a little of his old stubbornness creeping into his tone. “I should rather leave tomorrow.”
“I know,” Dr. Lee replied, “but you want to make sure your leg will support you before you set out. Your muscles have grown quite weak from lack of use during the last two months. Take Mrs. Evans or someone else with you when you walk. And take the cane along, too. You might suddenly get a cramp or lose your balance—you just never know. Give it a few days, and then, if you’re feeling well, go ahead and make your journey.”
All of this made perfect sense to Millie, and she hoped David would see the wisdom of it and take the doctor’s advice. She would hate to see him have a setback, even though his recovery meant they would soon be parting.
“It’s getting late,” she said. “Probably it will be suppertime when Dr. Lee finishes. But in the morning, we could take a stroll, as he suggested, and see how you do. I really think going to the dining room and perhaps a walk around the hotel grounds would be plenty for this evening. Don’t you?”
David frowned but raised one hand in defeat. “You may be right. Let’s see how it goes.”
She nodded, and something in her heart contracted. Her job now was to make sure David was capable of leaving her behind.
Peregrin entered the Frontier Hotel. He decided that he wouldn’t get far if he tried to conceal his purpose. He would use the direct approach, as he had at the doctor’s office. He reached for his wallet and walked to the desk.
“Are you wanting a room, mister?” the innkeeper asked.
“Well no, actually I’m here to visit one of your guests. Mr. Stone.”
The man smiled, and Peregrin decided he might not need to bribe him after all.
“Mr. Stone? Sure, we’ve got ‘im.”
Peregrin was almost surprised that he’d at last found the man he’d sought so long. He let out a quick laugh. “Honestly? He’s here?”
“Tall English gent with a broken leg?”
“Yes, I suppose so. I’d heard he was injured. Didn’t know his leg was fractured.”
“Oh yes. Been staying here nigh on two months now.”
Peregrin smiled. “My good man, I see that you serve meals here. Tell me, do you also take a bathtub to a guest’s room when he wants one?”
“Nope, but we’ve got a bath shed out back. You can get your hot bath out there when you’ve a mind to. You’re English, too, ain’tcha?”
“Well yes.” Peregrin frowned, wondering if he should admit it, but he supposed it wasn’t any use to try to hide the fact. But should he risk taking a room here? The scents of chocolate cake and frying chicken, wafting from the kitchen, swayed him. “Would you have a room free?”
“Yup. You want ter be next to Mr. Stone?”
“Oh no,” Peregrin said quickly. “In fact, a different floor is fine.”
“Awright. Got a room on the second-floor landing.” He passed Peregrin a key. “Sign here. You’ll want to catch Mr. Stone today or tomorrow though.”
“Oh?” Peregrin eyed him keenly. “Why is that?”
“The sawbones came ‘round and took the plaster off his leg this afternoon. Mr. Stone says he’ll likely leave in a day or two. Mrs. Evans is trying to talk him into staying out the week, but I doubt he’ll be here that long.”
“Mrs. Evans?” Peregrin asked.
“The woman what came here with him. Millie, her name is. Millie Evans.”
“Indeed.” Peregrin would have a juicy morsel to tell Merrileigh in his next letter. David Stone had a woman traveling with him. Very interesting.
Simmons shook his head. “We sure will miss her when she’s gone.”
“Why is that, sir?”
“H’ain’t nobody cleans as well or gets the sheets as white as Mrs. Evans. I’ll have to send the linen out to be laundered again. Well, nothing good stays, does it?”
“If you say so.”
Simmons shrugged. “Anyway, Mr. Stone’s in 302. You talk just like ‘im. It beats all.”
Peregrin pondered Mr. Simmons’s words as he climbed the stairs to the second-floor landing. He’d best send a note to Merrileigh right away. He hoped he could wire the message to New York, but even if he could, it would still take ten days or so for it to reach England from there by ship. Perhaps he’d send a short message for now, and save the news about David’s female companion until he knew more. But he needed to tell Merry he’d found David—alive, but
injured, and, most importantly, unmarried.
CHAPTER 27
Millie insisted that David sit and rest while she packed his valise, though he would much rather have handed things to her or even done the packing himself. She’d taken away all his shirts and linen but what he was wearing that morning to launder them, and now she had a big stack of clean clothing to fold and stow in his two traveling bags.
“I put a new button on this shirt,” she said, folding the one that was now his second best. “And I mended the tear in the sleeve of the plaid one.”
“That old thing.” He’d worn the plaid shirt while puttering about his farm in Oregon and had brought it along mostly in case he needed to do something that would get him dirty. “I suppose I shall have to buy an entire new wardrobe when I get to England, or decent folks won’t receive me.”
She paused and frowned at him. “Is that so? And here I was thinking how splendid it is that you have so many shirts and such a fine frock suit, not to mention the tailcoat and trousers, besides your everyday.”
“Oh.” He’d never thought of it quite that way. Even when he’d divested himself of most of his worldly goods, he was still much better off than many of the people around him.
“Do you want to keep these?” She held up the two pairs of trousers she had modified to fit over the cast.
“I hardly think so.”
Millie shrugged. “I shall take them to Mrs. Lee then. They might keep them for another patient, I suppose—or someone could put them back to rights for a person without a plaster cast. The black pair is quite good quality, and I hate to see it wasted.”
“Do whatever you wish,” David said.
Millie folded them carefully. “Perhaps Rev. Harden could use the black pair if his wife gives them some attention and removes the gusset.”
“Fine.”
“I’ll leave out the things you’ll need tomorrow,” Millie said.
“I still don’t see why we can’t board the train tomorrow morning.” David winced at the sound of his own voice. “Sorry. That’s childish of me, isn’t it?”
“Getting a bit anxious now?” She smiled at him. “One more day. Dr. Lee insists.”
“Yes, yes.” He huffed out a breath. Part of him wanted to bound down the two flights of stairs and stride off to the railroad station this minute. He’d been stalled far too long on this trip. The sooner he got to England the better.
But another voice within him cautioned that all too soon he’d be pining for America—the rough beauty of the West and the gentler exuberance of the East Coast. And beyond all of that, he would miss a certain lady.
Yes, she was a lady. He’d settled that in his heart. Millie had some unpolished facets, but she had more substance than most Englishwomen could imagine. Oh, he knew the British were supposed to be staunch to the bone, but nowadays he felt a lot of the upper class in England were too soft by far.
Millie could outride, out-cook, out-scrub, and out-sew most of the women he’d known in his homeland, and on top of all that, she could shoot and drive and do business as well as most men. She might not play the harpsichord or speak Italian, but what did those things matter?
She shook out one of his under-vests, and David looked away, embarrassed that she was handling his personal things. She did it matter-of-factly, almost the way a servant would. But he’d long ago determined he wouldn’t treat her like a servant or think of her as one. Whether a woman became a duchess or a maid was in most cases an accident of birth. Look at Elise Finster, his niece’s lady’s maid. She’d begun life as a lowly servant girl. Now she was the wife of a well-respected, independent rancher in Oregon.
Why couldn’t Millie cross the line in the other direction? An American woman of questionable birth and rearing, to be sure. But she had the stuff that would let her hold her head high in the finest of company.
“There. That’s the lot. I’ll put your bags in the armoire. Anything else I can do for you now?”
“No, I don’t think so. Thank you.”
“Well, then, I’ll be off. Mrs. Simmons wants me to wash dishes tonight, which will probably last until bedtime.”
“You shouldn’t have to do such mean work.”
She laughed. “Why not? Somebody has to do it. And they’re paying me.”
“Not nearly enough, I’ll wager.”
He looked at her again. Her thick auburn hair was pulled up on the back of her head, and she wore a plain calico dress, one she’d bought a few weeks ago to wear while cleaning, in order to save her traveling costume and her one “good” dress. An urge came over him to see her again in a well-cut gown of fine material, this time with jewels at her throat and her ears, and an ivory-cased fan at her waist, with her beautiful hair cascading about her shoulders. It could happen, if he weren’t so set in his ways.
It was not the first time David had contemplated the matter. He pictured Millie—no, Mildred—on his arm at a ball. Suitably gowned and coiffed, she could stand next to any Englishwoman and compare favorably. And if she had the fortune to allow her to stop working so hard, her roughened hands would soften. Yes, Millie with the advantages of, say, his niece, Anne, could hold her own in any social circle. Because she knew how to charm people. She listened and learned. She studied and mimicked. She could be more polite than the Queen herself.
And she would do everything necessary to avoid embarrassing a man who treated her well. He knew this somehow without being told—without being shown beyond what he had seen of her already. With a little training, he was sure she could pass for a countess. Could even be a countess. Almost, David felt a man could marry her and take her into the highest of English society and not be shamed.
But more importantly, in Millie’s company, a man would never be bored.
Peregrin lingered on the third-story landing, watching the door of room 302. He also kept a sharp eye out to make sure nobody else came along and found him loitering. He was still undecided on how to go about Merrileigh’s commission. Should he introduce himself to David or remain in the shadows? The woman accompanying David was an unknown quantity. Perhaps he should learn more about her before he made himself known. She might be an obstacle.
A door at the end of the hallway opened, and a woman emerged. Peregrin had previously scouted this doorway and found that it gave on a dim, narrow stairway that he assumed led down to the kitchen. The woman now walking toward him wore a dress his peers would call dowdy, topped by a large apron. One of the hotel staff, no doubt, though she was quite pretty. Fiery highlights shone in her dark hair as she passed beneath a wall lamp, and she carried herself well. In better clothes, she might dazzle him.
All of this Peregrin learned in a quick glance as he moved toward the head of the main stairs. He started down and darted another look over his shoulder. She paid him no attention but was opening a door across the hall from Stone’s. Peregrin descended a couple more steps, paused, and turned to go back up, as if he’d forgotten something.
When he reached the landing again, the woman had disappeared. Softly, he walked past her door. It was numbered 303. Could this be the woman that Mr. Simmons had described—David’s companion of the laundry talents?
This bore looking into. It seemed odd that David would allow a woman traveling with him to do laundry for the hotel. Had the next earl lost all his money? Peregrin could hardly believe she was working to pay for their lodgings. What gentleman would ask his lady friend to support them? Such an attractive woman must have some options other than drudgery. Surely she would have little trouble finding herself a husband.
It was a regular bumblebroth. Peregrin decided to take supper elsewhere—not in the hotel’s dining room—and give it some more thought.
David was in pain. Millie could tell as soon as she saw his face. The fact that he hadn’t dressed, but sat in the armchair wearing his dressing gown, confirmed her impression.
“Your leg hurts.” She crossed to his bedside table and picked up the laudanum bottle. “Let me fix you a dos
e.”
“No,” David said sharply.
She turned and frowned at him. He’d been so polite the last few days!
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I only mean that I don’t want to take the stuff. It makes me groggy, and I can’t think clearly.”
“But if you are in pain…”
“Pain is not the worst thing in the world.”
“Ah.” She stood with the bottle in her hand, waiting for a cue from him as to what to do. He had overtaxed himself yesterday, but she wouldn’t say that. He could figure it out for himself, and if she stated the fact, it would only irritate him.
“I believe we were going to the train station to buy our tickets,” he said.
“Yes, but it’s too far for you to walk, especially if your leg is bothering you.”
“I daresay you’re right. Can we get a carriage? Or even a farm wagon?”
Millie considered that. “It would be much simpler if I go. I can walk it in half an hour, while you rest.”
“I hate resting. It’s all I ever do.”
“But if you do too much now, you’ll have a setback. Then where will you be come time to travel?”
He looked away and rested his chin on his hand. “I suppose you’re right—but I don’t like it.”
She laughed. David never liked it when someone else was right. “Just tell me what you want, and I’ll get it. I suppose you want a through ticket to New York if they have such a thing.”
“No doubt we’ll have to go to St. Louis first. Get across the Mississippi, and then deal with the ticket question again.”
“You’re probably right. Shall I get two train tickets to the ferry, then, and we’ll cross together?”
“Why not?”
“Would you like me to help you back into bed before I go? I could ask Billy to bring you a breakfast tray.”
THE Prairie DREAMS Trilogy Page 86
