Her Safe Harbor: Prairie Romance (Crawford Family Book 4)

by Holly Bush

  “He’s beating her, Max,” he said finally. “Rothchild is hitting Jennifer.”

  Max leaned forward across the desk. “He’s beating her?” he repeated. “Tell me.”

  Zeb told him about seeing her in the bunkhouse at the Hacienda and in the music room at Willow Tree, and touching her side as they danced on the night of Max’s election celebration. He told him Rothchild’s reaction to his interference and about O’Brien’s injuries, and the message she’d carried.

  “Jennifer has not come out and told me but I believe Rothchild is stealing from the bank somehow and she has uncovered his methods. Her father doesn’t believe her. Her mother is sick in both mind and body, and Jennifer is terrified. I told her I would guard her safety while she straightens out the bank’s issues, which she must do secretly as she has told me that any rumor of this nature could shutter the bank.”

  “She is knowledgeable about the workings of the bank?”

  Zeb nodded. “Very. She doesn’t give herself credit, but she is. They are all at the mercy of the mother, who makes a shrew appealing.”

  “I feel personally responsible for Jennifer as she’s my wife’s unmarried sister and the father lets the mother treat them with an unnatural cruelty. I am in your debt for handling this for me,” Max said. “Does Calvin know?”

  “I did not tell him any particulars, but yes. He’s escorting Jennifer to a soiree tomorrow evening if I have not returned and he understands the danger she may be in. Rothchild is not a man who will ever back down, and he manipulates the mother and has played her the fool publically.”

  “You will make sure to kill him?”

  “I will not say anything to you on that subject. I will not have the United States senator from Texas as a witness in a murder trial. Anyway, you can’t have a chief of staff who has been charged with murder, and I can’t let the particulars come out if it will damage Jennifer or her work.”

  “You would go to jail before telling a judge he was beating her or robbing her family’s bank, or his part in this O’Brien girl’s injuries?”

  Zeb stared out the long window. He surely did not want to go to jail but he would, he supposed, if it came to it. He would not have Jennifer threatened any longer, whatever it took.

  “Your silence is damning.”

  “I’ll handle it, Max.”

  “I’ll be happy to go with you back to Boston, you know.”

  “I know you would, but I can’t allow it. I can’t let you risk that you will be involved with something that is detrimental to your career. In any case,” Zeb said, and met his eyes, “Jennifer Crawford is my concern. I will see to her safety and happiness.”

  “Ahhh,” Max said and folded his hands in front of him, taking a moment before finally looking Zeb in the eye. “She may need time. When this is over, I mean. She may not be able to just slough it off. Jolene wasn’t, and she is the strongest woman I’ve ever met. There’s an ugliness in that family that can’t be dismissed quickly. You’ll need to be patient.”

  “I will give her anything, including time. Anything she asks for or wants.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Zeb slept soundly after a meal of his cook’s beef stew and bread, still hot and yeasty from the oven. He dressed with care in a formal black suit, not the tuxedo with the satin collar, but still fancy enough for a society dinner when he arrived in Boston. He had his gun belt on under his jacket, something he’d not done since arriving in the capital, and a knife in his boot. He’d shaved with care and looked around his sleeping room as it might be the last he saw of it for quite some time, if ever, if things didn’t fall his way. He arrived at the station early, bought two newspapers and an orange, and boarded the train. He would arrive an hour before the Hospital Soiree started, leaving him plenty of time to arrive at Willow Tree and relieve Luther. The train’s rhythmic chug lulled him to nap, his feet propped up on the empty seat across from him.

  He sat up with a start when the sight of Jennifer’s face in his dreams became a nightmare as she opened her mouth in a scream. But it was just a child crying a few seats behind him. He shook his head and tried to concentrate on his newspaper but was soon lost in thoughts of Jennifer Crawford. She was reserved and introverted, and it must have been quite a burden for her to put herself out in such a public way as she was doing, he thought as he watched the passing scenery. He wondered if she was thinking of him right now as he was thinking of her.

  Suddenly, the train lurched. He grabbed his seat handles and could hear the screech of wheels breaking on the track. Cases fell from the luggage rack overhead, nearly missing the woman with the crying child. The car swayed, and a man fell into the aisle, sliding along the floor past Zeb. The train stopped with a high-pitched whine of metal against metal and clanging as its cars banged against one another in succession.

  Zeb helped the man on the floor to his feet and looked around at his fellow passengers, mostly white-faced with fear and some of the women visibly trembling. A conductor came through the door to the car at that moment.

  “There’s a herd of cows on the tracks ahead. Engineer done killed a couple. We have to get the carcasses off the tracks now,” he called out as he went down the aisle to the next car.

  “Damnation,” Zeb said under his breath as the other passengers shouted questions or spoke hurriedly to one another. He looked at his pocket watch. This mess was going to make his arrival very close. He tried to console himself that Luther was there and Calvin would be escorting her, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. That Jennifer was in danger.

  * * *

  “You must go back to bed,” Jennifer said, holding her mother’s arm as she walked slowly down the stairs. “You are in pain.”

  “Hush!” Jane said through white, trembling lips. “I am going and you will not stop me! I am not a child!”

  Jennifer let out a held breath and loosened her grip on her mother’s arm when they reached the white marble tiled floor of the foyer. Her mother was holding on to the bannister and taking deep, slow breaths.

  “Please,” Jennifer said. “I beg of you. Stop this foolishness. You are in no condition to leave Willow Tree.”

  “Oh, yes, I am,” Jane said and straightened her back. “I am going to the Hospital Soiree!”

  She followed her mother over to where Bellings stood with a thick coat.

  “Button it, Bellings,” Jane said with closed eyes.

  “Yes, of course, Mrs. Crawford,” he said, as if he buttoned his mistress’s wrap every day, and glanced at Jennifer.

  Bellings placed Jennifer’s royal blue cape, trimmed with an ermine collar, over her bare shoulders. She was feeling sick to her stomach, thinking about her mother and the soiree and Rothchild and the note she’d sent Calvin and Eugenia.

  “Where is Luther?” she asked Bellings as she gave a last tug on her white kid gloves. “He will be riding with the driver this evening.”

  “I do not know, Miss Jennifer. Let me check on him for you,” he said, and turned to a young man waiting attentively in the hallway.

  “Who is this Luther person and why is he riding with us? Who is driving the carriage this evening, Bellings?” Jane asked.

  “Jasper, ma’am.”

  A young servant walked up to Bellings and spoke softly into his ear. Bellings looked at Jennifer. “Luther is . . . unavailable, miss. Is there anyone else you’d like me to call?”

  “Unavailable? That’s impossible. I spoke to him this afternoon. He knew what time we were departing. Where is he?”

  “He is indisposed,” Bellings began, but the young servant interrupted.

  “He’s drunk, miss. Can barely stand on two feet, and singing songs at the top of his voice.”

  “Drunk? Dismiss him immediately, Bellings. We do not tolerate servants that are drunkards,” Jane said.

  “Where is he?” Jennifer asked. “Take me to him.”

  “You will not be in company with a drunken manservant, Jennifer! I forbid it!”
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  “I must speak to him, Mother. Wait here. I’ll only be a moment.” Jennifer followed the young servant to the kitchen entrance and heard shouting from belowstairs. She hurried down the steps.

  Mrs. Gutentide and Cook were leaning over Luther, who sat on the floor, his back propped up against the wall. They were making him drink from a ladle. “Come on, now, Luther, boy. Drink this. It will make you feel better.”

  “Mrs. Gutentide! What is the matter with him?” Jennifer asked.

  She straightened and hurried to Jennifer’s side. “He’s drunk, miss, I’m sorry to say.”

  “I don’t think that’s it,” Cook said. “This boy never has more than one or two pints, and with that new fancy job he’s getting, I don’t see him risking everything on drink.”

  “What do you think it is then?” Jennifer asked and knelt down. “Luther? Can you hear me?”

  An older man knelt on the other side. “Luther, boy! Wake up!”

  Luther opened his eyes.

  The old man tapped the sides of his face. “What did you drink, boy? Where was ya?”

  Luther shook his head. “Stopped at The Tavern for some stew and a pint. Don’t remember much after that.”

  The old man looked at Mrs. Gutentide and Jennifer. “Somebody put something in his drink, I be thinking. I saw him leave the kitchens no more than an hour ago with the kettle that needed forged. It would have been a half hour ’til he could even get to The Tavern from the metalworks.”

  “And then ten minutes’ walk here,” Mrs. Gutentide said. “There was no time for him to drink much at all!”

  Jennifer’s stomach turned over. Luther was clearly unable to ride with her and there was a suggestion that he had been drugged. Bellings appeared and helped Jennifer to her feet.

  “Mrs. Crawford is insisting that you come upstairs at once, miss. She is most impatient to leave.”

  “Of course,” Jennifer said and turned to the steps. “Please call Dr. Roderdeck to attend Luther.”

  Jennifer rushed across the foyer to where her mother stood at the door. She was shouting.

  “I will not stand for this disrespect! I will not stand for it!”

  “Calm yourself, Mother. You will exhaust yourself. Come. Let me escort you up to Mildred. She will help you get into bed.”

  “Absolutely not! I am going to the Hospital Soiree whether you come with me or not. Call for the carriage, Bellings.”

  “I am not sure this is a good idea,” she said, knowing that her mother would not understand, or perhaps even care, what she meant.

  Bellings opened the door, and Jennifer followed her mother onto the portico and down the steps to the drive where the carriage was pulling up. The old man who had tended Luther jumped down from the driver’s seat. “Luther begged me to go with you. Are you in some danger, miss?” he asked.

  She looked at her mother, climbing into the carriage with Bellings’s assistance. She turned back to the old man. “You are Mr. Hadley, correct?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “Is that Jasper at the reins? It doesn’t look like him,” Jennifer said.

  “Jasper’s a bit under the weather, miss. This here’s Nelson. He’s new.”

  “Jennifer!” her mother called. “Get in this carriage. We will be late if we do not leave immediately.”

  “This seems to be a series of most unfortunate incidents, and there could be some danger, Mr. Hadley,” Jennifer said and laid a hand on his arm. “We are only going a short distance into town proper to the Parker House Hotel, but be attentive.”

  “Yes, miss,” he said and climbed up beside the driver.

  “Whatever have you been doing, Jennifer? I am feeling quite restored having gotten some fresh air. Tell him to drive, Bellings,” her mother said through the open door.

  Everything she had promised Zeb she would not do or would not let happen had occurred, and she was at a loss as to what she could have done differently, other than perhaps digging in her heels and not getting in the carriage without Luther. But could she allow her mother to travel even this short distance alone? Jennifer climbed into the carriage and settled her cloak around herself, listening to her mother complain that if they arrived late it would be her fault. She looked out the window and scanned the buildings they were passing.

  “This is not the way to the Parker House Hotel,” she said, and began to give into the panic she had been barely able to contain. She banged her fist on the ceiling of the carriage and shouted, “Where are we going?”

  “Settle yourself, Jennifer. What a spectacle you are making!”

  “Mother! We are not going to the Parker House Hotel!”

  “Of course, we are not, Jennifer.”

  “Where are we going, Mother? What have you done?” she whispered, and felt the blood drain from her face. She heard shouting from the driver’s seat and saw something tumble past her window. The carriage careened and she hung on to the edge of the seat trying to see out her window. There was a man in the gutter, just now up on all fours and shaking his head. Hadley!

  * * *

  Zeb finally climbed down from the steps and walked to the head of the engine of the train. He surveyed the mess and watched as men pulled and pushed the remains of a cow’s carcass off of the tracks. Two other men were using tools on the train’s wheels.

  “Nearly done here,” one of the men working on the train said. “Get the passengers back in the cars.”

  “We’re not going to be able to move at full speed, I’m a feared. We can only do so much until we get this engine back to the yard.”

  Zeb turned and walked back to his car. He told a few of the other men there waiting with their families what he’d heard. “So we’ll be underway soon but we won’t be going very fast.”

  The next two hours were spent staring out the window onto the dark landscape, trying to shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong. Something that felt like it could not be fixed.

  * * *

  “Tell me, Mother. What have you done?”

  “I did no more than what any mother would do. Someone must control this family’s destiny. Your father certainly won’t! He never has!”

  Jennifer swallowed, real fear creeping up her back and around her gut, making her knees shake and her palms sweat. “It is not too late, Mother. Tell me what you have planned.”

  “I can hardly take credit, Jennifer,” Jane said with a smile. “Your fiancé is really very clever and has orchestrated a lovely evening for the two of you. An evening to reconcile your differences. You must do as he says, dear. It will only hurt for a short while.” Her mother looked out the window of the carriage, a wistful, faraway look on her face. “Rothchild is very manly. I’m sure you’ll be well satisfied; however, you must take care not to show it. Men do prefer a docile wife.”

  Bile rose in Jennifer’s throat and she leaned back against the cushions of the well-appointed Crawford carriage. Her mother had arranged for her to be taken sexually by a violent man. How absolutely appalling, and yet worst of all, she was not surprised when it was revealed. Did she really believe her own excuse that there was no risk? No. Of course she had not. She had known Rothchild was a dangerous man, and she was in his sights. But she had not truly believed Jolene, had she? She had not wanted to believe Zeb, either. She’d walked right into Rothchild’s dastardly plan, but that did not mean she would go down without a fight. She would fight with her dying breath.

  The carriage came to a stop and the door opened. “My fiancée! How lovely you look this evening,” Rothchild said. “Get out of the carriage.”

  Jennifer pulled off her gloves, laying them on the seat beside her. Without them, she would be able to scratch him. She could bite him or kick him when it came to it. For now, if she made him reach in for her inside the carriage there would be a scuffle and her mother could be hurt. Fleetingly, it occurred to her that perhaps she should quit caring for her mother but sense prevailed, if not love or like, and Jennifer got out of the carriage on her o
wn.

  “What do you want, Jeffrey? There are people expecting me at the Hospital Soiree,” she said with a shaking voice as the carriage pulled away.

  “Perhaps,” he replied, “but they will not know where to look for you, now will they?”

  She looked around then and realized she did not recognize the street. They were not in the neighborhood that Jeffrey lived in or anywhere she’d ever been before. “Where are we?”

  “We are just a few doors away from privacy and a large bed. Come dear. We’ll make this all painless. There is no need to be frightened. Just do as you’re told.”

  “No,” she said. “No. I won’t. I won’t do as I’m told.” She turned then to run, but Jeffrey had her arm and pulled her sharply around.

  She tried to pull away from his iron grip but his fingers would not release her. She looked up at him and he smiled at her.

  “Are you done yet?”

  Jennifer screamed as loudly as she could. When Rothchild clamped a hand around her mouth, she bit down on his finger, and he took a wide roundhouse swing with an open palm, landing a slap on her cheek and the side of her head. She was stunned but screamed again, tasting blood from her lip as she did. She saw a door open a few houses away.

  “Help!” she screamed. “Help me!”

  Rothchild grabbed her around the waist and dragged and carried her to a set of steps. He pulled her along and released one hand while he fumbled with a key at the door. Jennifer shoved at him wildly and slipped by him. He caught her by the hair just a few steps away and pulled her up the steps again, losing a slipper as she went, and through the door. He locked it behind him and dropped the key in his pocket.

  She was shaking and terrified. There was no one to help her but herself. “What is this place?”

  “This place is my secretary Mr. Jefferson’s humble home. It is not as plush and accommodating as a hotel room, where I’d planned to spend our wedding trip, but it will do. There is a bed upstairs with clean sheets and a bottle of wine for you to settle your nerves, but after this ridiculous display of independence you will not have it so easy, my dear Jennifer. You are going to bend over one of Jefferson’s wooden kitchen chairs like the whore that you are and have your maidenhead breached. I am quite ready to perform several times, as I have not visited my mistress for weeks in anticipation of this event.”