Baroness

by Susan May Warren

  “Shh.” He glanced at Rosie, back to her. “Maybe. Probably. Which means you need to leave, now. And I’m not just talking this house. You need to get out of New York.”

  “Out of New York. But—”

  “Go to Montana.” Apparently Oliver had come in, had been listening, and now moved into their conversation. “Go to the ranch. He won’t find you there.”

  “The ranch? My mother’s ranch? But I thought—”

  “I didn’t sell it, Lilly.”

  Oliver could have slapped her with less of a blow. She stared at him. “But you said it was gone.”

  “I—I leased the land, but I didn’t sell it. And the house is still yours.”

  He drew in a breath, glanced at Truman. “I just felt like if you knew it was there, I’d lose you all over again. I was going to tell you when the lease came up. I just wanted you to give this life a try. Give your mother’s hopes a chance.”

  “The hope that we might share the paper?”

  “The hope that we might be a family.” He looked back at her, tried a smile. His eyes glistened.

  She forgave him. How couldn’t she? Her affection ran deep, the kind of affection adopted, not birthed, the kind of affection that told her that this was the father she’d longed for. The father she’d found. And after everything, he’d preserved the very thing he thought he’d lose her to. “We are a family.” She wrapped her arms around his waist, holding on. “I love you, Father.”

  He stood a moment, as if rattled, then wrapped his arms around her. “I love you too, Lillian Joy. You are everything to me.”

  Everything. The word went through her, and she believed him.

  Then he held her away. “But Truman’s right. You have to go. Take the Rolls to the station, get on the first train west—”

  “No.” Rosie’s protest made them all turn. “No. He—he found us at the train before. When I escaped with Guthrie. He’ll find us again. He’ll kill us. He’ll—”

  “You could fly.” Truman was nodding, first to Oliver, then to Lilly, as if convincing himself. His voice warmed to the idea. “You’re a pilot, Lilly. You were born to fly. You could go to the air show and take my plane. Fly it out to Montana. Your father’s right—Cesar will never find you. And we’ll stay here and make sure he doesn’t follow you.”

  Fly. The idea rooted inside her, stirred her. Yes, they could— “What do you mean you’ll stay here? You can’t stay here! What if Cesar shows up?”

  Oliver glanced at Truman, back to her. “We’ll be fine, Lilly. Trust us.”

  “But—”

  “I swear, Lilly, you are the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met. Get in my plane and get out of here.”

  Truman wasn’t kidding, his blue eyes fierce in hers.

  She had no words. So she rose up on her toes and kissed him, something quick and sharp and true. “I’ll take care of her.”

  “Rosie?” Truman asked.

  “Your plane.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t care about my plane, Lola. Just the pilot.”

  Oliver had flung a blanket around Rosie’s shoulders, was helping her off the sofa. “Close your eyes, Rosie. We’re going to get you out of here.”

  Chapter 17

  She just wanted to stop hurting.

  Or feeling like the world had dropped out beneath her.

  It would help, too, if she could keep down her lunch. But four days of nausea, sickness, and traveling had turned Rosie inside out. She ached from her feet to her hairline, and no amount of blankets or sitting in front of Lilly’s massive green marble fireplace, watching the flames devour the pine logs, snapping and growling, could warm her.

  The morning sun slid fingers through the room, touching the dark side tables, turning the crushed red velvet on the divan and side chairs shiny, like blood.

  She leaned back into the rocking chair, wishing she could shake the hum of the prop from her brain or erase the feel of the wind seeping into her ears. No matter how well Lilly tucked the blankets around her in the cockpit, the breeze found the holes and drilled the cold into her body. She’d never be warm again. But perhaps it had nothing to do with the four-day flight to Lilly’s ranch.

  Probably the cold came from leaving behind everything good and honest and right in her life. From watching her husband’s eyes glaze over, feeling life spill from him onto Oliver’s white marble floor.

  She stared at her hands. She still had his blood embedded in her pores.

  “I didn’t want your money Rosie. I…wanted…us. You.”

  Why, Guthrie? Why? If she closed her eyes even for a moment, she saw him there, in Central Park, near the carousel, the shadows of the horses distorted against the eerie lamplight. She could only imagine that he’d followed her. Or maybe he’d heard her telephone Cesar from the next room as he lay in their bed, recovering from Cesar’s beating. But she saw none of it in his beautiful eyes when she’d kissed him good-bye and lied to him.

  He’d lied to her too. Told her that everything would be okay. That he would protect her, that they would be safe, live happily ever after. He’d kissed her sweetly, and for a moment, she’d leaned into him, believing him.

  It gave her the courage to untangle herself from his arms and try to buy their freedom.“Ma’am, perhaps some tea?”

  The voice rescued her and she found Dawn, Lilly’s housekeeper, bearing a tray with tea, some crackers. Apparently Oliver had telegrammed ahead, because the house awaited them with a complement of staff, every cobweb swept clean, and smelling of cinnamon.

  In a different life, with Guthrie beside her, Rosie might like the ranch home. Two stories, with a grand entrance, the dark, tooled banister curving up to the second-floor landing. Gleaming golden wood floors, the oval grand room, the warm parlor with the red velvet set-tee—it all suggested she might be back in New York City, sitting in her mother’s great room, with the exception of the oil portrait of an Indian woman over the mantel. She stared down at Rosie with what seemed kind, black eyes and Rosie couldn’t look at her.

  Likewise, she could hardly bear the kindness of Dawn, who resembled the woman in the portrait so much they might be sisters. She’d tried to ladle soup into her mouth, rubbed her frozen feet, and sat with her into the night, pressing a cool cloth to her face.

  “I—I don’t know if I can keep it down.”

  Dawn set the tray on the side table. “You need to eat something, Miss Rose, for the child.”

  How many times had Lilly said that on their trip west? Rosie ran her hand over her belly, aware that the baby had quieted, probably from the lurching landings, the vibration of the plane. She could still taste her fear as the ground dropped away, as she glanced back at the surreal image of Lilly in the pilot’s seat.

  Lilly had also turned into her nurse. When they landed in Philadelphia where they spent the night, then in Ohio somewhere, then over to Indiana and Illinois—every night she tried to coax food in to Rosie. “You’ll feel better with some food.” She finally managed to get some soup down at the hotel in some prairie hideaway. It only returned an hour later. Lilly put her to bed in the boardinghouse and fetched a doctor.

  He found the baby’s heartbeat and suggested they spend a few days, but Rosie pushed them on to Nebraska, across southern Colorado to Wyoming, then north to Butte.

  It seemed familiar terrain to Lilly, who only grew fiercer, the sun turning her skin leathery except for the white rings around her eyes. And every time they landed, she apologized.

  “You’ll feel better when we get to Montana.”

  She’d never feel better. How did one feel better when life—when God—had betrayed her?

  She’d simply been too happy. She’d simply forgotten that she had nothing with which to barter for the graces of the Almighty.

  She’d turned into her mother, broken. Weeping in her bed at night, without comfort.

  Now, she answered Dawn.

  “I don’t want to eat.”

  “Not even for your child?”

/>   Rosie looked away. How was she supposed to raise a child without Guthrie? She shook her head.

  Dawn made a noise then got up. “I’m drawing you a bath. See if we can’t work some of those tangles from your hair.”

  Rosie closed her eyes, leaning her head back. She didn’t care what she looked like. She’d never be clean, be whole again.

  Not after watching Guthrie’s face as he swung his bat at Cesar. She didn’t know him then. And perhaps her scream had jolted him, jerked him away from his fury.

  Perhaps it had cost him his life, because in that hesitation of the second swing, one of Cesar’s men had found his gun.

  She jerked, watching him stumble back, the shot sharp and acrid through her. She pressed her hands to her mouth, seeing Guthrie fall. She shuddered as he got up, swinging, then as the man shot him again.

  About then she’d stumbled, screaming, out of the shadows where she’d hid, and had run to her husband, broken on the path.

  Cesar’s men picked up Cesar and ran.

  Only the shivering trees remained to witness her grief as she gathered Guthrie into her arms. Still breathing. Still alive.

  Lilly. Lilly would help her.

  “Ma’am, your bath is drawn.” Dawn again. Rosie opened her eyes from the trauma. Dawn wore a white cloth tied around her black hair, pinned at the nape of her neck. Unlike Amelia, her mother’s housekeeper, Dawn wore a gray cotton dress, no apron, informal. As if she might be Lilly’s spinster aunt.

  “Where’s Lilly?”

  Lilly had vanished shortly after they’d landed on the strip of road outside the house. She’d motored the airplane up the driveway toward the barn, the sun still simmering high over the horizon, rousing Rosie from her slump in the front cockpit.

  As Lilly tried to help her out, a lean, dark-headed man rode in, reined his chestnut mount, and climbed down. Older than Lilly, with a deep tan, lines on his face, he pushed up his hat with one gloved finger and stared at them as if he’d never seen a plane before.

  Perhaps he hadn’t.

  Then, Lilly climbed down, and something about the greeting between Lilly and this man, as Lilly dove into his embrace, heated her eyes, made her look away.

  Lilly called him Abel, and it roused a memory tucked inside Rosie. Abel—their hired man? The one Lilly had written to in her childhood?

  Rosie had no words for the way this same man climbed onto a hay bale, leaned into the cockpit, and lifted Rosie into his arms. He smelled of sweat and the prairie grasses, the heat of the sun, wild and uncouth, but she didn’t care as he carried her inside and into a room decorated in teacup rose wallpaper. Dawn had appeared and tucked her into a featherbed. As the housekeeper had pulled the green velvet drapes of the bedroom, blotting out the Montana landscape, Rosie had sunk into the pillows and imagined everything away.

  Imagined herself safe.

  Imagined herself in Guthrie’s arms.

  Until she woke the next morning and found the house quiet, the sun shining, a new, fresh day of agony. She’d been restless since then, unable to find a comfortable spot. Even the rocking chair now pressed into her bones.

  “Miss Lillian rose early, and is out on her land with Mr. Abel.”

  Rosie allowed Dawn to slip an arm behind her as they mounted the stairs for her bath. “He’s the hired man?”

  “He’s leasing this land, and was a dear friend of her mother’s. He tends the house, also, although he has his own homestead just south of here.”

  “What happened to his hand?”

  Dawn tucked her close, her arm around her waist as they worked their way up the stairs.

  “He was in a terrible mine fire, the one that killed Daughtry, Lilly’s father. Esme took him in after he recovered. He’s part of the family.”

  Pictures hung on the wall, oils of Esme and Lilly in her christening gown, the long lace flowing down over Esme’s lap, Lilly’s chocolate hair, dark eyes so full of fire, even then.

  “Such a painful and yet joyous season. Mrs. Hoyt had lost Daughtry in that terrible fire and she didn’t even know she was carrying Lilly. The day she discovered she had Daughtry’s child within her, she sat in that very rocking chair, just like you, and stared at the fire. As if trying to perceive God’s mind.”

  Dawn slowed halfway up, as if sensing Rosie’s fatigue. “I helped Mrs. Hoyt when her time came, and I’ll help you too, Rosie.”

  They had reached the top. The exertion of the climb knotted Rosie’s body and she stopped, groaning.

  Dawn held her as she clung to the wall, breathing through the ache. It seemed to subside enough for her to take a full breath.

  “How soon before your time, Rosie?”

  “Maybe a week or more.”

  Dawn said nothing as she hiked Rosie back into her arms and delivered her to the bedroom. Rosie could smell the scented oils Dawn added to the bath, floral and light. As if trying to soothe the darkness from Rosie’s spirit.

  She settled Rosie onto the bed and left her to fetch her robe.

  Rosie ran a hand over her stomach as the baby shifted inside her. Another fist of pain followed the kick inside. She caught her breath.

  Dawn returned, watching her with a frown. “Are you sure—”

  “What did Aunt Esme decide?” Rosie said, her hand tightening around the brass frame. “Did she perceive the mind of God in taking her husband so early? In giving her a fatherless child?”

  Dawn began to untie Rosie’s hair, letting it fall, her hands gentle. “Perhaps it wasn’t the mind of God that she discovered, but His love.”

  His love. Like Lilly. And Oliver.

  But Rosie had no Oliver waiting for her, and this child needed a father, a family. He needed a mother who wouldn’t look at him and see grief.

  There was no love for Rosie to discover.

  Another pain coiled around her, bending her over, and in that moment she felt a kick, even a pop, deep inside.

  Wetness saturated the damask coverlet of the bed.

  Rosie jerked, moaned as the coil around her belly tightened, stealing her breath.

  Dawn knelt before her, took her hand, and squeezed. “I believe your time has come.”

  No. Rosie stared into Dawn’s eyes, a darkness seeping through her, turning her numb. “No. I’m not having this baby. You don’t understand. I can’t have this child without Guthrie. I won’t.”

  Dawn smiled and patted her cheek. “Miss Rosie, you’re going to be a mother whether you want to or not.”

  * * * * *

  Deep inside the caverns of sleep, and caught in the tangle of prairie smells and the warm rush of wind over her skin, the mourning cry resonated as timber wolves on the far ridges. The sound of it tunneled inside her, resonated, drew her out of slumber in a rush, her heart in her throat.

  Lilly stilled in the padding of the night, listening. She was fifteen again, and wolves stalked the herd, thirsty and brutal, ready to devour. She should pull on her boots, grab her rifle, wake Abel, and ride out to protect the calves.

  She heard the sound again, robust and high, panicked and angry, and time bled away.

  “Charlie!” Lilly threw off her quilt and didn’t mind the cool lick of the wood floor across her feet as she grabbed her robe, pulling it on. The cries resounded down the hallway, so loud they could sheer clear through to her bones. She tied the belt, cinching it around her before she stopped at Rosie’s door, not sure whether to knock.

  A breath, and another loud bellow made her turn the handle.

  She pushed into the room, the cries from the cradle at the end of the bed nearly deafening. Rosie lay curled in the center of the bed, her knees to herself, the covers over her head. Lilly stood above the cradle, hesitating only a moment before she scooped up the infant.

  “Shh, Charlie. Shh.” She tucked the little one against her chest, her hand finding the wetness of the cloth nap. No wonder the child sounded miserable. She grabbed up the quilt, tucking it around the baby as she found the dressing table. The infant continued t
o scream, its little mouth wide, its entire body trembling. Lilly unpinned the cloth, found it only wet, cleaned the child, added powder, then pinned on a fresh nap, swaddling the baby back into the quilt.

  For a little girl, Charlie had the lungs of a buffalo. She continued to squirm, arching her back, her eyes closed, her hands in tiny fists.

  Oh, how Lilly loved her. From her fuzzy prairie-brown hair to her blue-as-the-sky eyes, the red little fists, her round tummy, every petite appendage including her delicate nose, little Charlie seemed nothing short of a miracle.

  Just think, she might have had a child like this, soft and downy, with Truman’s dark eyes.

  No, that dream had died. She couldn’t dwell on the things she’d lost. None of them could.

  Lilly held the infant in her arms and sat down on the bed. Rosie didn’t move.

  “Rosie. Charlie’s hungry. Are you sure you don’t want to try—”

  “Go away.”

  So she wasn’t sleeping.

  Lilly bit back her ire, kept her voice kind, patient. What had the doctor said? Depression? But this didn’t feel like depression. It felt more lethal, like grief. Like losing Guthrie had destroyed Rosie, and with it anything she had to give to her child.

  “Rosie, she’s so beautiful. Look at her. Just one look. I promise, she’s worth it. She has these amazing fingers, they curl right around your finger. And this nose—it’s your nose. And she smells delicious.” She pressed her lips to Charlie’s forehead, inhaling. “Shh.”

  “I don’t want her.” Rosie rolled over, her back to her. “I can’t.”

  Lilly drew in a breath and couldn’t keep the frustration from her voice. “I don’t understand you, Rosie. You have everything to live for. This child is here because Guthrie loved you. You’re not alone. You have me and my father. We’re going to help you. And you’re not destitute. Your mother and Uncle Bennett wired that you could come back to New York, live with them. You still have the money they gave you. And look at your precious, beautiful daughter—”

  “Get out!” Rosie sat up, glaring at her with reddened eyes. “I don’t want her. I don’t want any memory of Guthrie, or the life we were going to have. I don’t want any help. I just…” She closed her eyes, held up her hand as if to push them away. “I just want to forget.” She lay back down, pulled the covers up over her head. “Please, leave me alone. And stop calling her Charlie. That’s the name Guthrie wanted for our child. This child is an orphan.”