by Cat Cahill
With that, Mrs. Ruby dismissed the girls. Caroline slumped a little in relief.
“I plan to sleep until noon,” Penny said, stifling a yawn.
“You’ll miss the lunch service,” Caroline reminded her.
Penny groaned and linked elbows with Caroline. “Do you suppose they’ll notice if I sleep while I serve guests?”
Caroline laughed. “Only if you spill the coffee.”
“I have to report for breakfast at six,” Millie said as she and Dora joined them outside the dining room. “I don’t know how I’m going to make it!”
Dora nodded in agreement, although to Caroline, she looked about half-asleep already. If the girls served breakfast, they’d receive the evening meal off, while the opposite also held true.
“Oh!” Penny exclaimed, hardly appearing tired at all now as they passed the open door to the small lunch counter right off the lobby. Guests who couldn’t afford the dining room, or who preferred to have a simpler meal, could come to the lunch counter for cold sandwiches or soup. “Did you hear that Genia dropped a tray of soup all over the lunch counter this afternoon?”
“It only splashed a little on the countertop. It mostly hit the floor and didn’t get on any customers,” Millie corrected.
“Still,” Penny said, her eyes wide. “Can you imagine the talking-to those girls received from Mrs. Ruby?” She shuddered. “It had to be worse than when I burned a hole through one of her dresses.”
Caroline couldn’t help but laugh a little. Penny’s general ineptitude with anything related to housekeeping outshined even Caroline’s troubles with it toward the beginning of their training. Over the summer, they’d learned both housekeeping and cooking skills so they could help Mrs. Ruby train the maids and even the kitchen boys when they started arriving just before the hotel’s originally scheduled opening date. It was hard work, harder than anything Caroline had ever done in her life, but she’d grown to love it. She didn’t necessarily love all the chores they’d practiced—she’d be thrilled if she never had to scrub another pot encrusted with burnt food again—but she reveled in the fulfilled, exhausted, useful feeling she’d had at the end of each day. She was pleased to note that she still felt that way, even now that her duties were more narrowly concentrated on serving guests.
She was drifting behind the others as they reached the top of the stairs. Penny and Millie still chattered, while Dora looked ready to collapse where she stood. A sudden movement from the doorway that led to the library caught Caroline’s eye. Certain it was one of their guests looking for reading material, she had almost looked away when Thomas’s face appeared around the open door.
Caroline nearly gasped as he drew back inside. Her heart thumped as she scrambled for a reason to go into the library. The girls were allowed to borrow books, but saying she wanted one might mean one of the others would join her. Maybe she could have forgotten something downstairs . . .
“I fear I’ve left a letter in the kitchen.” Caroline patted the pocket of her skirt for effect.
“Do you need company?” Dora asked, yawning.
Caroline smiled. “No, I’ll be quick. You go on to bed.”
“Are you certain?” Millie asked. “Remember what Mrs. Ruby said.”
Caroline remembered. Mrs. Ruby had warned them against wandering the hotel alone at night. While they hoped their guests were of the highest quality, no one knew for sure. After all, the hotel hardly checked references when guests arrived. “I’ll be quick,” she said. “Besides, we have only a handful of guests, and it’s been quiet now for at least an hour.”
Millie nodded, appearing reassured. Caroline slowly made her way back toward the stairs, but when her friends rounded the corner to the hallway that led to the women’s dormitories, she paused. After waiting a minute or so, she turned and strode toward the library.
“This is most improper,” she whispered the moment she entered the room. A single lamp burned low where it sat on a mahogany table. Thomas had most likely brought it with him, as the only lights in the room were the lamps affixed to the walls, and none of those were lit.
“But our rendezvous by the creek was proper?” His eyes glinted with mirth in the yellowish light. “I seem to recall your clinging to me as if I were a single tree in a storm.”
She wanted to slap him. Gone was the tenderhearted man she’d seen this afternoon. The teasing cad had returned. “If you’re only here to remind me of what a . . . a scoundrel you are, then I’ll bid you good night.”
“A scoundrel? Lady, you offend me.” He held a hand to his heart in a mocking impression of someone who actually cared about what she thought of him.
Caroline let out a small huff and began to move toward the door. If he could do nothing but tease her, then she had nothing better to do than retreat to her room for some sleep.
“Wait.” He grabbed hold of her wrist.
Caroline stopped and turned. He immediately dropped her arm, and a tiny part of her wished he hadn’t. She must be exhausted to be thinking so. “Am I here for a reason or simply to entertain you?”
His grin dropped into a more serious expression and his gray eyes went somber, betraying a sadness Caroline hadn’t seen before. The moral weight of what he had done whirled through her head. She couldn’t imagine existing each day knowing she had been responsible for another’s death. Her heart ached for him.
“I apologize,” he said. “I was hoping you might have a few minutes to help me.”
Any trace of the day’s fatigue hid itself beneath the nerves that began humming under Caroline’s skin. “I might. How could I help?”
“I thought it might be best to give you the facts of what happened the evening I . . .” Thomas closed his eyes briefly. Of course she didn’t know what he was thinking, but it seemed to her as if he still had a hard time admitting what he had done. Maybe that was the only way he could live with it. “Then perhaps we might figure out how to obtain proof of my innocence.”
Caroline nodded. “All right.” She settled herself into a stiff-backed chair at a small table. The larger, plush wing chairs looked far more likely to cause her to fall asleep.
Thomas joined her, sitting in the second chair at the table. Then he began.
Chapter Thirteen
Thomas leaned forward in his chair, resting both hands on the fine wooden table. The piece, like most of the furniture in the hotel, had been shipped from back East. Only the massive front desk downstairs had been created on-site through the hard work of many men on the crew. Thomas ran the facts through his head, trying to determine the best place to begin.
Caroline remained still, her eyes on him. She was far more patient that he’d thought she be. Most women of her status would have already been nattering on about another subject, but she waited.
“It was late in the evening,” he finally said.
She nodded at him to continue.
“I’d been working at that mine for a couple of years. I’d been entrusted with a number of jobs that the bosses and the men who worked in the office didn’t care to do. And one of those jobs was transporting the pay. It had to be emptied from a strongbox on a railroad car into another box we brought on a wagon, which we then drove back to camp. When I got to—”
Caroline held up a hand. “Was the box locked?”
“Yes. We carried pay for every man in the camp. We couldn’t risk it being stolen.”
Caroline nodded again, her eyes narrowing just a little. It was almost like a tell. Narrowed eyes meant she was thinking, not necessarily that she was angry or that she didn’t believe what he was saying.
“Normally, I’d go with another man and the sheriff the company employed. It took two of us to load the lockbox, and the sheriff kept watch in case of trouble. That day, it was just me and the sheriff. I had no reason to suspect anything was wrong about that, since it had happened once or twice before. We’d loaded the money and had gotten to the outskirts of the encampment on our return. It was maybe a quarter mile from
the railroad line, but there were quite a few trees so you couldn’t see the tracks from the camp. We got to the fork in the road that led to the mine one way and the camp the other when the sheriff asked me to stop.”
“How come?” she asked.
“He said the mine boss had told him to send me to the mine after we’d fetched the pay. I told him I had to see the money to the company office first. That was my job. He insisted that I get out and he’d drive the wagon the rest of the way. This was where I became suspicious. Part of the reason more than one person went to transport this money was to keep it safe. No one was supposed to be alone with it. I informed him it was my duty to ensure the men’s pay reached the office. He insisted the boss had asked him to bring it instead. He even insinuated the boss had suspicions about me.”
“Did he?” Caroline asked. She leaned forward, hands still in her lap, as if he were telling the most riveting tale she’d ever heard.
“Of course not. Why would he? I was a loyal employee. I’d never caused trouble before. Well, not while on the job, at least.” He gave her a wink. She frowned disapprovingly at him, which made him laugh. “I attempted to get the horses moving again, and that’s when he took a swing at me. I fought back. I’ll, uh . . . I won’t go into the details of that,” Thomas said when an appalled look crossed her face. Did men not fight in Boston? He supposed they simply threw their money at each other to solve disagreements, instead of their fists. Give him a good, honorable fistfight any day.
“Did anyone see this?” she asked.
“No. We were well-hidden because of the trees, and most of the men were down at the mine. No one came until . . .” He paused. He was jumping ahead. “I’d finally wrested him from the wagon—after he’d broken my nose, by the way.” He paused a moment to let that sink in. Despite the gravity of his situation, he was rather proud of that fact. But when Caroline showed no degree of being impressed, he continued. “The sheriff drew at that point and demanded I go down to the mine. I refused. I couldn’t afford to lose that work, and I most certainly would be let go if I didn’t deliver the pay. So I did the only thing I could think to do. I dove under the wagon. That threw him off long enough that he didn’t fire right away. By the time he did, I was half out the other side, and he missed by a wide berth. The moment I was out, I drew and returned fire. That bullet got him in the stomach. That’s when folks finally showed up. Just in time to see me with the pay wagon, and the sheriff shot on the ground.”
Caroline drew in a breath. “That’s . . . unfortunate.”
He gave a dry laugh. “That’s one word for it.”
“How did you break free?” she asked.
This was the part he dreaded most, only because it made him appear guilty when he wasn’t. “I tried to explain what had happened, but no one listened.”
“Wait. Who was there?”
“The company pay clerk, who’d come to check on the delay, and the sheriff’s deputy. I could tell they didn’t believe me. The deputy sent the pay clerk back to get the mine boss. I knew I’d hang if I stayed. So I drew again, grabbed the deputy’s horse, and got away. By the time they got other men out on horses after me, I was too far gone.”
“And you came here?”
“Eventually. I spent a few weeks hiding nearby, long enough to know the sheriff had died and the money had disappeared. Long enough to know someone put the blame on me for stealing it.” He studied the fine grains in the table. It reminded him of the little table that sat by the door to the room he shared with his father as a child. The table had been his mother’s. She’d left it behind—along with everything else—when she’d gone. It was the only thing of hers his father kept, besides a photograph he’d given to Thomas. Why that table, he’d never know. “I lost everything that day. My job, my freedom, my good name. I even lost my father’s ring that same day, as we were unloading the company’s money into a lockbox.”
“I’m sorry,” Caroline said, her voice quiet.
“He died when I was seventeen. It was the only thing I had that was his. It was gold, and he wore it on his little finger.” He held up his hand as if he could see the ghost of the ring there. Saying these words out loud revived the pain anew. “He raised me alone.”
“That couldn’t have been an easy task. I’m sorry you lost your mother so young.”
Thomas snorted. “Thank you, but she’s not dead. Not so far as I know, anyhow.”
Caroline’s delicate face contorted into confusion.
“She left us.” No need to tell her the whole, messy story.
“That’s terrible,” she said. There was so much emotion behind those two words, one might think it had happened to her instead. “I can’t imagine a woman leaving her child.”
“It was a long time ago. I don’t remember her much.” He tried to brush it off, but the way she looked at him . . . It wasn’t pity. He couldn’t stand pity. It was something else. Something kinder, more empathetic. Almost as if she felt the pain he’d lived through as a child.
She reached out and—ever so briefly—laid a hand on his arm. It was the tiniest gesture of comfort, and it caught him entirely by surprise. Her hand was small and the warmth of it burned through his shirt sleeve. For the briefest moment, he imagined himself a customer in the hotel dining room, having Caroline all to himself as he ordered food for the both of them.
The second she pulled her hand away, he shook his head just slightly to rid it of the ridiculous fantasy.
“I must go,” Caroline said, standing up. She looked a bit flustered, and something about that endeared her to him a little more. Women with all the money in the world didn’t embarrass easily. But then again, she’d defied that mold more than once already. And that only made him even more curious about her.
“I’m sorry to have kept you.” He offered her an elbow, which, to his delight, she took, even though they had only a few feet to walk before they needed to break apart.
“Please don’t be.” She tilted her face up and looked him in the eyes.
His breath caught. The smile she gave him was genuine, as if she enjoyed spending time in his company. It lit up her face and made her even more beautiful. The few freckles that dotted her cheeks reminded him she was more than just a delicate girl. She was a woman who knew the value of hard work, and that made her all the more appealing. He lifted his other hand, and tucked a piece of her flyaway hair behind her ear. He let his hand linger, wanting more than anything to trace the line of her jaw and brush his fingers over her lips.
She stood perfectly still. Her eyes closed, and then, a moment later, they flew open again. He dropped his hand from where it rested near her ear but held her gaze until she looked away.
“I’ll think about your story,” she said, her breath a bit ragged. “Perhaps together we can come up with some way to prove your innocence.”
He smiled as he let her arm go. She gripped the doorknob like a sailor leaving a ship for the first time in months. He hoped it was because of him. “Thank you,” was all he said.
She bestowed a quick, uncertain smile upon him. And then she was gone.
Chapter Fourteen
Caroline awoke to the sounds of Penny moving about their room. She relished the comfort of her bed before stretching and sitting up. The window in their room faced north, and judging from the amount of sunlight filtering through, the morning was half over.
“Hello, sleepyhead,” Penny said brightly from where she stood at the washbasin.
“I doubt you’ve been awake much longer,” Caroline said. She yawned. It wouldn’t hurt if she lay back down for just a few moments, would it?
Penny laughed as she splashed water on her face. “We’ll have to scrounge scraps from the kitchen for breakfast.”
Caroline gave in and slid back between the bedclothes. They were so deliciously soft. Her eyes began to close.
“Caroline Beauchamp!” Penny’s sharp Southern accent made Caroline’s eyelids fly open. “Never in my days have I seen the morning where
you weren’t leaping out of bed, ready to take on even the hardest task.”
“Mmm.” The sound came out of Caroline’s mouth as her eyes shut again.
A weight pressed on the bed. Caroline slid one eye open to see Penny perched there, staring at her. “May I help you?” she asked sleepily.
“Yes. I’d like to know what kept you up an hour later last night. I may have been asleep when you first returned, but only the dead could sleep through the squeak in that wardrobe door. Did Mrs. Ruby tell you the story of her childhood spent in Prague when you returned downstairs?”
“Mrs. Ruby is from Indiana,” Caroline said, fighting to keep her eyes open.
Penny poked her shoulder. “I know that. But what I don’t know is what kept you out so late. And don’t think I’m leaving you be until you tell me.”
Caroline pushed herself into a seated position, yawning. She’d been wanting to tell Penny everything, but she couldn’t betray Thomas’s trust. Not to mention, she knew how much Penny loved gossip. Perhaps a tiny bit of the truth would suffice. “I was speaking with a man.”
The incredulous look Penny gave her nearly made Caroline wish she could’ve lied. A falsehood would’ve sounded more believable that what she’d just said.
“Caroline Beauchamp.” Penny pronounced her full name, emphasizing every syllable, for the second time that morning. “I wouldn’t have been more surprised if you’d said you’d gone for a midnight ride to the mining camp.”
Caroline stifled a laugh. That was highly improbable, and Penny knew it. Thanks to taking a spill off a horse when she was seven years old, Caroline had retained quite the fear of riding. And stepping foot into the wild mining encampment a few miles to the east was not something she ever wished to do. “It’s true,” she said.
“Well, I need more details than that. Who is he? What’s his name? Is he handsome? Do I know him? How did you meet him?”
