Fair Is the Rose

by Meagan Mckinney

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  "What was that noise?" Cain looked up from his hand of cards and stared sharply at the back of the car.

  "Nothing—just the squeak of wheels," Rollins answered hastily. "Go ahead and bid, Cain, you're winning. I can't afford to lose this hand."

  "Look—she's gone." The three words hung in the air spoken with all the drama of a Shakespearean actor, not a U.S. Marshal forced to state the obvious.

  Reluctantly, all five men raised their heads and stared at the back of the car, now devoid of their prisoner.

  "Well, I'll be. She is gone." Rollins looked at his men.

  "She just up and left the minute our backs were turned. How about that?" another marshal piped up.

  Cain stood and ran his hand through his hair as if exasperated by their bad acting skills. "I'm going to check that noise."

  "Ah . . . wait, Cain." Rollins scuttled up to him and whispered, "Let my men go back there. Then nobody can say you had anything to do with her disappearance."

  Cain stared at the door that led out to the baggage car. "Where's Glassie? Did he get off at Abbeville? He told me he was headed for New Jersey."

  "Maybe he went back to his own car—"

  "No." Cain walked to the rear door, his holstered guns swaying with every pump of the engine's driving rods. "He didn't leave by the front of the car. If he left, he left here." Cain touched the oak panel of the rear door.

  Rollins watched him, concern furrowing his forehead. "What's wrong? Tell me what you're thinking."

  "I don't know what it is . . . but something's wrong. Tell the conductor to stop the train. I'm going to check out the baggage car."

  Rollins nodded.

  Cain opened the door between the cars.

  "How would you like your death?"

  "You can't get away with this—they'll find me—they'll see I was murdered—" Numb with terror, Christal backed away from the fine Spanish dirk that Didier held elegantly in his hand.

  "If I simply push you from this train, I could break your neck. The end would come quickly, mercifully." He turned sober. "But then you might only break a leg or an arm. You'd lie in the melting snow, every wind, every chill, sapping the warmth from your body while you lay helpless from your injury. It could take days to die. Slow, terrible days. And I'd never be sure you were dead. After all, someone could find you."

  Her hands were trembling as she held them out in supplication. "And he will find me. You think Macaulay will believe the worst—but if he's confronted with a terrible truth, I know him, he'll go to his grave searching to disprove it. He'll ride every inch of these tracks. When he finds my body, he'll know you killed me."

  "Then he must not find your body."

  "How—?"

  "When Cain jumps at Big Crimloe Creek, you will be dead, my dear. The creek runs into the Mississippi and it's fast enough to move a body well out of reach of this train. By the time they find you, no one will know who you are." He touched the pointed dagger to his thumb. To prove its razor edge, he pricked himself. A crimson droplet fell to the wooden floor. "Come here."

  "No!" she gasped, backing away. She glanced at the baggage door. Didier blocked passage to the other cars, but if she could swing open the side door, perhaps a jump wouldn't be fatal. One thing she knew, Didier wouldn't jump after her; he was too much of a coward.

  He walked toward her, the knife gleaming in the shafts of sunlight streaming through the holes in the roof. She ran to the side door and unlatched it. It swung open by the sheer forward force of the speeding train. The noise was deafening. Thousands of tons of black steel and wood propelled forward in tandem by the use of steam. The prairie whipped by, a white-and-gold blur.

  "It's no use, Christal. Jump if you must. You know if you survive, I'll get you one day. You'll always have to watch your back. One day I'll be standing there. Your death is inevitable. Give it to me now!" He lunged forward. She screamed. The knife seemed to shoot for her heart.

  Then suddenly, it fell. And Didier was thrust backward in the strong arms of her lover.

  "Oh my God!" she cried out, tears streaming down her face as Cain took Didier into a headlock. The dirk was at her feet. She picked it up, just to make sure.

  "Baldwin Didier?" Cain demanded through clenched teeth.

  "Let me go, sir! This woman was trying to rob me. She was trying to escape the train when we prematurely pulled out of Abbeville."

  "No," Christal whispered, shaking her head. She looked at Cain and knew he believed her.

  "We have a passenger who can identify you as this girl's uncle. Christal claims you're responsible for the murder of the Van Alens, her parents."

  "No! It's not true!" Didier choked through the iron headlock. "You have no proof! And where is this passenger you speak of? I know of no one on the train who can identify me!"

  "You've done something with Henry Glassie. These are his clothes you're wearing. We'll get to the bottom of this. I'll have every lawman within fifty miles of here to search for evidence. So confess. We've come to the end of the line."

  "Never!" Didier reached inside his vest. Cain grappled with him for the weapon. It was a tiny Derringer, much like the muff pistol she had once held on Cain. The men struggled for possession of it, their shouts and grunts muffled by the violent noise of wind passing outside the open car door. Christal held her breath. Didier was able to point the small pistol at Cain, but Cain swiftly grabbed Didier's wrist. She heard a cry, then the pistol, too, fell to the ground.

  "You'll never catch me, I tell you!" Didier backed away from Cain's menacing form. He turned and fled through the connecting door. Cain opened the door to follow, then paused as if he could not believe his eyes.

  Christal ran to him. Beyond, her uncle was down between the cars, grappling with the coupler. He was not an agile man, nor was he slim. Baldwin Didier was used to servants and waiters, but when it came to his freedom, even he could lower himself to manual labor. He labored now to separate the car. Already he had worked the pin more than halfway.

  "Don't do this!" Cain cried out, his face taut with shock. The train was moving full speed. Uncoupling the cars might cause a derailment.

  "Good-bye, Christal. Until we meet again!" Didier unpinned the coupler. He grasped it in his black, greasy palm and laughed. Then he lost his balance. He clung to the railing on the other side of the train, but it was just wire beneath his weight. It bent and bent, until he lost his grip. Though the baggage car was separated from the engine, it still moved at a quick clip on its own momentum. As if in slow motion, Christal saw Didier fall to the tracks. He screamed and she buried her head in Cain's chest. There was a loud, grisly bump, then silence as the car rolled to a halt, and the body of the train sped on, the conductor not yet notified by Rollins to halt.

  "Shit."

  The silence of the prairie was awesome after the thunderous noise of the train. The boxcar sat like a house on the tracks, immovable. Cain pulled her from his chest and repeated his curse. "Shit."

  "What is it?" she asked, wiping the tears from her cheeks. She couldn't believe Didier was dead. But he was. Behind the car, he lay like a gray pinstriped boulder wedged to the side of the tracks.

  "We got no confession, no proof. I knew something like this would happen. I should have tried to save him."

  "You would have been killed yourself."

  "C'mon. We gotta go. When Rollins stops that train and comes looking for us, I want to be gone from here. Without a confession they'll take you to New York and take you away from me—"

  "What's that noise?" Christal turned worried eyes to the comer of the car. The mound of mail bags was moving up and down, like a cat under a comforter.

  Cain began throwing off bags. Underneath lay Mr. Henry Glassie, of the Paterson Furniture Company, tied and gagged, and looking embarrassed, because for the second time in his entire life he was once more caught by the same lady, clad only in his union suit.

  "Thank God you weren't killed," Christal whispere
d as she went to him. She helped Cain untie the bonds. When the gag was off, he let loose several expletives.

  "So sorry, Miss Van Alen. Your uncle is a devil. Worse than that Kineson fellow."

  "Henry, they'll be back for you. But we gotta go." Cain helped him stand, then he took ChristaPs hand. Peering out of the car, he saw, miles in the distance, the train stop just before the rise across Big Crimloe Creek.

  "So you're taking up the life of an outlaw after all, eh, Cain? And all for Miss Van Alen?"

  "Where's the choice?" Cain snapped, eyeing the prairie as if scouting the escape route.

  "Oh, there's a great number of choices." Mr. Glassie chuckled. "And I would suggest starting them all with some marriage vows. You've treated this girl much too casually, for all her position in society."

  "She won't have much position in society when they lock her back up in that asylum. Sorry, Glassie, but we gotta run."

  Christal felt Cain's pull. She looked back at Mr. Glassie, her eyes giving a silent farewell.

  Henry Glassie only laughed. "I don't think this woman's brother-in-law is going to appreciate your galloping off to live like a renegade. I want to tell you, Cain, you've no reason to do it. I was awake most of the time I was underneath those bags. You say you haven't a confession from Didier—but that's false, because you do have a confession. J heard him confess his crimes, every word, and I will testify as such. From this moment onward, consider Christabel Van Alen a free woman."

  Cain stood rigidly still, as if he needed time to absorb what Glassie was saying. Then suddenly he let out a loud Rebel yell and picked her up like a rag doll.

  Her mind and body were numb with shock. She was free.

  She was free.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Manhattan. It had changed in four years. Christal had left the city when the tallest structures were church steeples. Now there were office buildings and stores, some higher than six stories. And there was an elevated train being built to circumvent the knots of carriages and public omnibuses on the street. The farmland north of Central Park had been graded for town houses. There was even talk of building—of all things—an apartment house for the wealthy, and the plans were to put it on the west side of the park, in an area still so desolate, people jokingly referred to it as Dakota Territory.

  The city had changed. She had changed. Christabel Van Alen had returned, yet not entirely. She was not the girl she once had been. But then . . . her gaze trailed to Macaulay, who sat silently beside her in the rented hack. She didn't really want to be that girl again. The pain she never wanted repeated, but now she knew if she had not run from her uncle, she never would have met Macaulay Cain. Her love. Her salvation.

  "You're very quiet, my love," she whispered to him as she squeezed his hand.

  "Are you excited? It's been a long time since you've been home." He smiled down at her, but his eyes were shuttered. He was holding back something, she knew it. Ever since they'd arrived at the Grand Central Depot, he seemed as quiet as if he were attending a funeral. She wished he would tell her what was bothering him.

  "Everything is very different. The city has grown so rapidly, I can't quite get my bearings." She looked out the window. Telegraph wires etched the sky like tangles of clotheslines, the sidewalks were dotted with the iron covers of coal chutes, even the alleys were now paved. It was a modern city in every sense of the word.

  "Christal."

  She turned to face him, her eyes glistening with happiness and anticipation. He seemed somber in comparison. "Why are you so pensive?" She laughed. "You look as if we're headed for the gallows."

  His mouth tipped in a wry grin while his gaze took in the sight of fashionable shoppers on Broadway. "This is all so new, that's all." He didn't look at her. "I never expected all . . . this." He waved his hand toward the window.

  "You told me you'd been to New York. You knew about Delmonico's."

  "I came here a long time ago—right after the war. And God knows I might have known about Delmonico's—everybody who's come here has heard about it—but I sure as hell never ate there."

  "We could go there if you like."

  "You know I can't afford a place like that. You'll just have to go with Sheridan and your sister."

  She placed her hand intimately on his thigh. "My sister is wealthy. Not me. Remember that."

  He glanced at her. "You have your inheritance and I'm not talking about wealth—I'm talking about upbringing, background, family ties and traditions. No matter what you say, Christal, this place is a part of you. I can see it in your eyes."

  "So it's a part of me. What does that change? Nothing."

  "It's a part I hardly know."

  She touched his cheek. He turned to her. They locked gazes. "Then let's get reacquainted. . . ."

  She kissed him tenderly on the lips—a sweet, loving kiss that was meant to be as chaste as it was quick. But she soon found out he had different ideas. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to his lap, shamelessly deepening the kiss as if she were still some kind of saloon girl and not the famed missing heiress of Washington Square. Despite the privacy of the cab, she heard some men jeering on the granite sidewalks.

  "Stop . . ." she gasped when she finally broke free. Her cheeks were red, and she glanced embarrassedly out of the window to see if anyone else was watching.

  "You see you have changed."

  "No. I've never wanted to be treated like a whore."

  His mouth turned into a rock-hard line. "Girl, that's not how I treat a whore. That's how I treat the woman I love."

  She sighed. She knew he was a man not destined to be tamed. Now, in the midst of the citv, he seemed wilder than ever.

  "Fifth Avenue!" the driver called out, knocking on the door of the carriage.

  "Alana." Christal whispered her sister's name.

  "C'mon." Cain helped her out of the carriage. If he was shocked by the enormous marble mansion in front of them, she didn't see it. She was too busy running to the door and pounding on it.

  "Yes?" An old, austere butler answered the door. Beyond, a marble foyer loomed like a mausoleum.

  "I'm—I'm here to see Alana." Christal held her breath, disoriented. She didn't expect to recognize things. She'd never seen the Sheridan mansion, but everything seemed so foreign. Perhaps her sister wasn't home? Perhaps she had the wrong house?

  "Miss Christabel?"

  Christal widened her eyes. The butler was almost smiling, and his eyes held a warmth for her he couldn't have for a stranger. He knew Alana, and Christal looked enough like her sister that he could recognize her. She had the right house after all.

  "Is she home? Oh, don't tell me I've missed her!"

  "No, miss. I'll tell her you've arrived. Please do come in and allow me to settle you in the library. My name is Whittaker." The butler stepped aside and let her pass. When Macaulay followed, the men exchanged suspicious looks.

  "And who, sir, may I say is calling with Miss Christabel?" The butler waited for Cain to introduce himself, as if he were a general waiting for a lowly lieutenant. He missed nothing of Cain's appearance, not the barely civilizing veneer of gray wool suit that the man wore with an invisible savagery that strained at every seam, and not the clean, starched collar that just barely covered a terrible scar around the man's throat. The old butler took particular note of the strange black felt hat the man had yet to remove.

  "I said, who may I say is calling?" Whittaker repeated disdainfully.

  Cain tapped himself on the forehead. "Well, I'll be damned! I forgot my calling cards!"

  Christal shot him a quelling look. "Just tell them U.S. Marshal Macaulay Cain is accompanying me."

  "Very good." Whittaker bowed to Cain, keeping his facial expression calculatedly neutral. "May I take your hat, sir?"

  Cain took off the Stetson and ran his fingers through his hair. He handed it to the butler, but just as Whittaker was about to retreat, he said in a mocking twang, "Hold on there, partner."

 
Whittaker imperiously raised his eyebrows at the word "partner." Cain smiled and unbuckled something beneath his suit jacket. He reached down and untied the thongs that wrapped around his wool-covered thighs. Casually, Cain dumped the heavy holster into the butler's hands.

  Whittaker looked down. The six-shooters looked well oiled and well used. The holster was replete with cartridges, enough for one rip-roaring shootout. He gulped. "Will that be all, sir?" He looked at Cain, his eyes wide.

  Cain crossed his arms over his chest. "Yep." His answer was as slow as molassess.

  The old butler nodded. He held the holster out from his body. "The library is the door to your right, miss." Without another glance at Cain, Whittaker stiffly walked away, holding the holster as if it were a bomb.

  "Do you think she'll recognize me?" Christal turned worried eyes to Cain.

  But Cain wasn't looking. Instead, his gaze was focused on the Corinthian pillars that lined the foyer. He touched one as if to see whether it was real marble. By his expression, she knew he had his answer.

  "These people live in a bank."

  Christal finally looked around the foyer. It was indeed the most lavish entrance she had ever seen, but somehow she couldn't care about it one way or another. She was too excited about seeing Alana.

  "Come into the library. Surely we'll be more comfortable there." She took his hand and led him through the doors that Whittaker had pointed out to them.

  The library was far from cozy. The walls were adorned with sixteenth-century Flemish tapestries depicting the Union of Utrecht, the floor was covered with English Axminster carpet, the furniture was overly carved and well gilded. When Christal chanced to look at Cain, she thought he looked about as comfortable in the Louis XIV chair as he would on a bed of nails.