The Northern Devil

by Diane Whiteside

  Rachel gave Collins a cool smile and nodded slightly, completely ignoring his son and praying to God for strength. “Mr. Collins.”

  She stepped down off the step and strode briskly away, heading for the only private Pullman in sight—and forcing as many men as possible to follow her. Thankfully, the railroad car wasn’t very close, especially when she took the longest possible route through the station’s stairs and platforms.

  “Welcome to Jersey City, Mrs. Davis,” Collins observed.

  “Really? How long will we be here?”

  Behind her, she could hear Mother making a great show of climbing down slowly from the cab, no doubt assisted by Mercy. The distant train was pulling out, loudly announced by its whistle. The sailor had untied all but one of the lines attaching the ferry to the dock.

  “Not long, I’m afraid. The locomotive’s got a full head of steam up and is ready to pull out.”

  She raised an eyebrow, carefully not looking at an empty luggage cart only a few steps away. “Why take me?”

  “Your charming company?”

  Maitland, pacing behind his father, snickered loudly.

  Mother and Mercy were definitely out of the cab now.

  Rachel smiled, allowing her teeth to show slightly. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe you.”

  She grabbed the luggage cart and shoved it into Collins, the less nimble target. He staggered back with a curse into his son, who stumbled, thereby knocking down one of their thugs.

  Rachel picked up her highly beribboned, flounced skirts and ran for the departing train. She’d never make it very far—an hour’s freedom would be unbelievably lucky—but the longer she was gone, the harder Collins would have to work. And the less attention he could spend on finding her family, reducing the odds Maitland would ever be able to terrorize and attempt to outrage Mercy again.

  “Come back!”

  Rachel crossed the tracks in a most unladylike leap. Ahead and at the top of the stairs where she’d entered, Mother and Mercy’s escort came running down the platform to capture her.

  Behind him, the two women were racing up the ramp toward the ferry, where the ticket-taker was waving them aboard. Thank God, their plan had worked so far. Now to give them some more time…

  She dropped onto the tracks and began to run, dodging an incoming freight train.

  Collins’s feet pounded behind her. “Stop her! She’s mad!” he shouted.

  Of course, he’d still claim, to anyone and everyone, that she’d gone insane from grief over Elias’s death—the same logic that had enabled him to lock her up for the past six months. She was probably giving him additional reasons to do so. Not that it mattered, if it would save her family.

  A locomotive thundered past, half-deafening her. She sidestepped, dodging it like a door slammed in her face.

  The air cleared, quieting with the engine’s passing. She took a deep breath and turned, returning to the route away from the station.

  Maitland stood square in her path, smirking at her like a cannibal with a tasty new treat. “And how are we feeling today, Mrs. Davis?”

  Her skin turned to ice, despite the hot sweat pouring under her dress. Was that the look he’d given Mercy, the one that had left her unable to move despite his coarse words—until he’d started to lay harsh hands on her?

  Rachel swallowed hard and tilted her chin up, determined not to show fear. “Maitland.”

  Collins thundered up behind her and gripped her elbow hard, the granite warning of someone who wouldn’t hesitate to do violence. “I’ll take her to the railroad car.”

  “Father—”

  “Maitland, get the men and look for the other women. If they’re gone, we lose our best lever against Mrs. Davis; you know that. I’ll manage the situation here.”

  Maitland nodded curtly and ran off.

  “I’d let him punish you except he hasn’t learned discipline yet,” Collins warned, hauling her back toward the Pullman. “I’m not ready yet to explain to the other trustees any serious injuries you might have. But don’t push me too far; you can always have a riding accident that would cause any such problems.”

  A whistle blew—the rich, mellow sound warning of a boat’s departure. With a great huff of steam, the ferry pulled away from the dock.

  Rachel held her tongue, refusing to add fuel to his temper’s fire. So far, there’d been no sign that they’d found her family.

  Collins nodded and waved at the station attendant in a very jovial, patriarchal fashion and twirled his finger by his temple in the universal sign for madwoman. The other man hesitated but finally touched his cap.

  “I’ll have to pay him off,” Collins complained bitterly. “You clumsy cow, I wonder how much this escapade of yours will cost me?”

  He marched her onboard the private Pullman and shoved her into a seat. Two of his thugs followed them in, regarding her with sincere dislike. “You two,” he ordered, “watch her until I return.”

  Rachel sniffed and closed her eyes, listening to the station’s noises. God forbid they’d reveal her family’s capture.

  Two hours later, Maitland leaped up into the railroad car’s drawing room, completely ignoring the damage his muddy boots did to the superb carpets.

  “Well?” demanded his father. “Where are they?”

  Maitland came to attention. “I’m not completely sure. But a cabbie took two women of their description to the Cunard packet, which sailed for London more than an hour ago.”

  Thank you, Lord! Mother and Mercy are safe at last.

  Rachel started to smile, flexing her fingers for the first time.

  Collins slapped her across the face, knocking her sideways.

  For a brief moment, she saw stars—and then nothing at all.

  Chicago, two nights later

  “Good evening, Mr. Maitland,” came the words through the night’s blackness. The flat down-easter accent was harsh, suggesting a face and throat ruined by years of fighting in back alleys.

  Rachel’s subconscious recognized it immediately—and who her jailer greeted. She jolted awake, lying tense and still in her hotel bed, listening to her enemy’s return.

  Ever since Elias’s death, she’d been held captive by Collins—first at Anglesey Hall, the Davis family estate, and later on at Collins’s Ledge, the Collins family’s private island in the Elizabeth Islands, after he’d convinced the other trustees that she’d gone completely mad from grief. Long months of never going outside without at least one guard, of being allowed solitude only in rooms the size of a large pantry, of having every message scrutinized—even under the guise of spurious concern for her welfare—had taught Rachel more than she’d ever wanted to know about cages. Her parents had always given her the freedom, both physical and intellectual, to go where she pleased and to think as she pleased.

  After Mother and Mercy had escaped, her captors had tightened the noose around her even further. Now—now even her dreams were frantic.

  She’d guessed that Collins planned to head south to Philadelphia or Wilmington, taking her away from the other trustees and closer to his family’s allies. But without any explanation, the private Pullman had been hitched to a western-bound train in Pennsylvania. She still didn’t know why they were in Chicago, but being a thousand miles away from anyone who knew her or might help her left her extremely worried.

  “Evening, Silas. How’s the bitch doing tonight?”

  Rachel flushed angrily, hating yet another reminder of Maitland’s opinion of her.

  “Sound asleep, sir, like always. Went to bed early, she did.”

  Rachel smiled slowly, her fingers curling into the quilt’s fine needlework. But I was victorious in this much, at least: I smuggled in and read Susan B. Anthony’s latest treatise on women’s rights. Something that would undoubtedly infuriate both of you. And someday, I’ll manage to attend Mount Holyoke Seminary. Somehow.

  Maitland chuckled nastily. “Good enough. She wouldn’t offer anything interesting to a real m
an, in any event. Good night.”

  “Good night, sir.”

  She hissed softly, wishing yet again that Elias was still alive. He’d been well pleased with her attractions and he’d been a great hero. Both Grant and Sherman had praised his deeds and he’d even been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

  Whistling softly, Maitland entered the room next to hers, the suite’s sittingroom.

  Rachel started to lie back down.

  The doorknob creaked next door.

  She stilled, startled by the metallic screech. Due to some quirk of the hotel’s construction and nighttime echoes, she could hear every sound from inside the suite’s sittingroom.

  “Good evening, son. Close the door and sit down,” ordered Albert Collins.

  Maitland hesitated, obviously not expecting to see his father. He recovered quickly enough. “How was the opera, sir?” he asked, shutting the door and coming forward.

  His handsome face bore all the expected signs of dissipation, plus some indications of brawling. He was still the finest son a man could hope for—strong, clever, handsome. Pity he couldn’t have gone to sea to smooth out some of that temper, as five generations of Collinses had done before him. But the Panic of ’57 had nearly wiped out the great Collins shipping line fifteen years ago. Maitland’s grandfather had killed himself for failing the family, leaving it up to Collins to rebuild everything.

  He waved off his only child’s inquiry. “Well enough, for such a benighted frontier town, and I made some good business contacts. They’ve rebuilt quickly after the great fire, but done little for their music’s quality. Still, we’ll be able to leave on schedule tomorrow. And your evening?”

  Maitland shrugged, settling into a chair with a cup of black coffee as he eyed his father over the rim. Good; he was a smart lad and was trying to sober up. “Won a little more than I lost. That makes up for last night.”

  He’d wasted so much money that he had to admit it? Good God, had the boy been paying no attention to any of his father’s lectures all these months?

  Collins slammed his fist down on the table next to him, rattling the china. “You should be courting the widow, not spending your time at the cockfights!”

  Maitland looked genuinely baffled. “Why? We control her money now.”

  “We do not. We only have the purse strings. You need to sire her brats so we hold it forever.”

  His son glared at him and set the china cup down all too carefully. “Rachel Davis is a bookseller’s granddaughter and no fit mother for the next generation of Collinses.”

  “Her ancestry matters little, compared to the money.”

  Maitland seemed disinclined to drop the argument. “It’s hard to imagine why the other trustees protect a servant’s brat so thoroughly. Old Man Davis must have been mad to let his only remaining son marry her.”

  “Her father was Davis’s secretary and most trusted confidant. All of his friends—especially all of those trustees—knew her father as well as they knew Davis. I personally praised the match to high heavens, in order to stay on the trust’s board.”

  Maitland muttered something under his breath but not loudly enough that his sire was forced to rebuke him.

  “As for Davis’s opinion of the marriage, I suspect he’d have accepted any woman his son wanted to marry, given the immense hole in the boy’s lung.”

  “So her blood’s poor, but she’s somehow accepted by society,” Maitland complained. “Even if I could tolerate that, she’s a cold bitch, with more interest in books than men. Unlike her sister, who’d always go into a flutter whenever I squeezed her tits. There’s nothing in Rachel Davis to heat my blood.”

  “Who cares as long as you breed her? Just marry her and get some heirs off her,” Collins snapped. “For that much money, you can close your eyes with her and find your pleasures elsewhere.”

  Maitland rolled his eyes. “If it’s so important, why don’t you marry her?”

  “I’m her principal trustee, not her sole trustee. A three-quarters vote of the other twelve trustees could remove me at any time. I’ve already been warned that if I married her, they’d remove me, certainly as principal trustee and probably from the board as well.”

  “They threatened a Collins?” Maitland’s face darkened. “Buy them off! Kick them out of the board!”

  Collins’s heart warmed at his son’s instinctive backing. But it was his paternal duty to bring common sense into the discussion and raise his son to full manhood. “Even a Vanderbilt couldn’t bribe all the men Old Man Davis selected. Only her blatant grief at the whelp’s funeral gave me enough ammunition to keep her sequestered for so long.” He tapped his finger on the table to emphasize his next point. “It would take a combination of wealth, great power, and superb family reputation to obtain enough votes on the board to become sole trustee. Someone like a Grainger of Philadelphia could do it, but nobody else.”

  Maitland frowned, recognizing the impasse. Always swayed by deeds long past, Boston’s upper crust still included the Collins men in their inner circles, as they had for the past two centuries. But today’s Collins clan lacked the cash and barefaced political clout to throw a serious contender off the Davis Trust’s board—unlike, say, one of the Pennsylvania Graingers with their ancient name, immense banking and railroad fortune, and vast web of political connections. They were so powerful that they might even be able to publicly bribe a Congressman.

  No, he’d have to seize the Davis fortune more subtly.

  Collins stood up and poured himself a fresh cup of coffee, then carefully stirred cream into it and waited to see where this setback would send his son’s thinking.

  “What’s the rush? Why can’t it wait for a month or two?” Maitland asked slowly.

  Ah, now his boy was showing some maturity! Putting the pieces of the puzzle together, instead of simply wanting to hurt someone.

  Collins propped his hip on the heavy central table, deliberately rewarding Maitland’s insight by relaxing and treating him as part of a team. “The other trustees keep a close eye on the trust’s funds, at least the ones they understand.”

  “So?”

  “It seems young Davis invested in a very rich Nevada silver mine, an unusual investment for the Davis family. I’ve been skimming every bit of cash out of that Bluebird Mine for the past year.”

  “Somebody’s asking about it?”

  Collins nodded, silently urging his son to probe.

  “One of the other trustees?”

  “That I could handle, dammit. No, it’s the other partner, a Californian named William Donovan. I told him we’d spent the money to explore a new discovery of silver.”

  “A big tunnel to nowhere, eating up his money without a trace? Good idea.”

  Collins smiled, savoring another example of a Collins’s ready ability to stretch the truth. Then he shrugged and returned to telling the facts, as was due to his own flesh and blood. “Yes, except Donovan didn’t believe me. He’s in Seattle now but has demanded proof upon his return from there, when he’ll visit the Bluebird. If there isn’t a big silver find or his money, there’ll be hell to pay.”

  “Who does he think he is? No Californian can do that to you!”

  Collins smiled wryly and clapped his boy on the shoulder. “Thank you for your confidence in me, but you’d best know who your enemy is first. He’s the owner of Donovan & Sons, one of the largest western freighting companies. He’s a partner in the Bank of California and has a seat on the San Francisco Board of Trade. He most certainly has us over a barrel, should he demand that the Davis Trust repay him.”

  “Hell,” Maitland swore softly, his face darkening.

  “Exactly,” Collins agreed—and twisted his wrist, instinctively testing to make sure his old seaman’s dirk was still ready for action. No matter how much attention Donovan’s sudden death would draw, he still saw red whenever he heard the fellow’s name.

  “Do we have the money?”

  “Not in cash; we’ve spent too muc
h on rebuilding the shipping line. But marrying Rachel Davis would rid us of Donovan—and give us the rest of the Davis fortune as well.”

  Maitland flung up his hand, like a fencer acknowledging a hit. “Touché. I’ll do it tomorrow.”

  He grabbed the brandy decanter and poured a slug into his coffee cup. “We should probably kill Donovan anyway. It would be cheaper than paying him off.”

  “True,” Collins agreed, rather pleased by this blatantly bloodthirsty train of thought. It was the first time Maitland had used his natural viciousness to help the family. “My man in Nevada should be able to arrange his death, probably in an ambush.”

  Maitland lifted his cup. “To the new Collins fortune, built on the foundation of the Davis Trust!”

  “To the new Collins fortune!”

  Their cups clinked.

  Rachel’s fingers clenched and unclenched in the embroidered coverlet, wishing she could throw something at those two demons in the other room.

  William Donovan’s life was in danger and she was the only one who could warn him.

  She needed to escape soon, just as quickly as possible. They were headed west to Omaha, where a western freighting company should have a depot. Maybe there she could get word to William Donovan.

  Or she could cable to her friend Lucas Grainger, who worked for William Donovan now.

  She and Grainger had remained friends ever since they’d met at her wedding to Elias, their relationship rather like those with the young men she tutored in Latin. Their letters had grown into a personal correspondence that endured beyond Elias’s death. Always friendly, never intimate, and certainly infrequent given Grainger’s erratic movements about the countryside, his often blunt thoughts, about anything from political scandals to how Indians followed wolf tracks, had been her one refuge from Elias’s slow, dreadful spiral into death.

  Afterward, she’d wished bitterly she still had the solace of his letters, given the Collins clan’s increasingly direct attacks on everything she held dear: First, to force her to give them control of Elias’s home, and later, to drive her into marrying Maitland.

  But Grainger’s letters had stopped when she’d arrived at Collins’s Ledge, undoubtedly because Collins had blocked them like every other contact with the outside world.