Running Wild

by Denise Eagan

  Holding her wrist in his left hand, Nicholas produced a pristine white handkerchief from his pocket and wrapped it around her hand.

  “I can bandage myself perfectly well,” she said, even though she seemed frozen in place.

  For a short spell, his eyes held hers—deep blue comfort—then focused on her palm again. “Sure,” he said, turning her hand over to tuck the ends into the bandage. “There. That’ll keep long enough to stop the bleeding.”

  After scanning the room, he took her elbow and led her to a chair and table in front of the windows. A light summer breeze flowed over her cold face. So soft, so mellow, so normal, in stark, paralyzing contrast to the horror hiding in her trunk.

  Nicholas took a seat across from her and said in his typical no-nonsense manner, “O.K., spill the beans.”

  She didn’t want to, for doing so meant facing it again. Instead, she ran her eyes over his person. He’d washed up after the train trip, and shaved and dressed in casual black eveningwear. “You have blood on your gloves,” she observed.

  Shrugging, he stripped them off and dropped them on the table. “Have plenty more in my room. So what happened that made you answer the door with a pitcher in your hand? Your face is as white as a ghost.”

  “I don’t believe in ghosts.”

  “Doesn’t make you any less white.”

  She took a deep breath. “It’s—it’s the trunk.”

  Nicholas frowned at the evil thing in the center of the room, then turned back to her again. “O.K. Sure. Reckon I can see how it’d scare you,” he said, with a bemused twinkle in his eyes. “Paint eyes on it, and a mouth around the opening, and it’d scare the bejesus out of me.”

  A tiny flash of amusement marbled her panic. “It’s not the trunk itself. It’s what’s in the trunk.”

  “Ah,” he said, his confusion dissipating. “Find a spider then? That’d turn me ghost white too.”

  A little gurgle bubbled up her throat. “You’re not afraid of spiders!”

  “Sure as shootin’,” he said. Grinning, he leaned back in his chair, and she had the distinct impression that if he’d been wearing his Stetson, he’d have tilted it backwards. “Not them little ones, mind you. They don’t bother me a’ tall,” he drawled, “but if’n it’s one o’ them big hairy types, why that’s a different story altogether.”

  “Of course, for you’ve never shot a rabid mountain lion as cool as you please, and contemplated taking its pelt a mere two minutes later!”

  He shrugged. “You can’t shoot a spider.”

  “But you can step on it.”

  “Don’t matter if it already bit ya. Don’t always see ’em coming, not like a cougar. Spiders can be poisonous, ya know.”

  “No spider, Nicholas McGraw,” she said, as merriment controlled her voice, “would dare bite you, fearing that but one drop of your blood would kill it!”

  “Oh no, ma’am, I’m not venomous.”

  “Ha!”

  He smiled, glanced at the trunk, and said, “O.K. So what’s in the trunk?”

  She started, having forgotten about it. His silliness had distracted her, relaxing her muscles and soothing her ragged nerves. Had he done it on purpose? Of course he had. Another man would have plunged straight into the problem. Another man would have attempted to sooth her frail female sensibilities with platitudes and false assurances that he would handle the situation for her. But not Nicholas. . . .

  “It’s—well you see my clothes have been destroyed.”

  Two identical furrows appeared between his eyebrows. “Destroyed?”

  “Yes. Someone took a pair of sheers to them.”

  Lines of confusions formed around his eyes. “Sheers?” he asked. His casual cowboy demeanor vanished as he rose and crossed the room to lift the trunk lid. He froze, staring down at the bright confetti cloth. After a short spell, he raised his eyes to hers. “All of them?”

  She nodded, clutching the upholstered handle of her chair to control the shaking that threatened to reclaim her body. The fabric was rough but cool under her hands. “Yes. I slid my hand down to the bottom of the trunk and . . . and nothing seemed intact. Not even—not even my unmentionables.”

  “O.K.,” he said and looked down at the trunk again. “The pieces of paper. I reckon it’s your speech.”

  “And my notes.”

  “Sure.” He closed the trunk with utmost care, as if suddenly aware of the silence of the room. For all his effort, the tiny click rang out harsh, final. “You got anything to drink?”

  “I broke the pitcher.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment longer than necessary. Then, rubbing his neck, he crossed the room to retake his chair. “Sorry. I forgot. How’s your hand?”

  “I suppose it’s stopped bleeding. Would you like your handkerchief back?”

  “No, you keep it. I always have extra in case of trouble.”

  Naturally. Nicholas, under his quiet, easygoing air, always anticipated trouble. Perhaps that was the quintessential element in maintaining his perpetual aura of confidence. He was prepared for anything.

  He sat silently for a minute, his eyes focused on the floor. She, on the other hand, focused on him and wondered what he was thinking and where his thoughts were taking him. It was far easier than thinking herself.

  “You hungry?” he asked finally, his gaze on her again.

  She started. “Hungry?” Surely his thoughts were deeper than that?

  “Yeah. It’s been hours since we last ate. You must be hungry. You didn’t show up for dinner.”

  She’d forgotten all about dinner. “Oh—that’s why you came to my room. Where are Del and Jane?”

  “Del’s feeling poorly. They bowed out.”

  “Due, no doubt, to his drinking on the train, which did nothing but aggravate Jane further. You’d think he’d know better.”

  Nicholas hesitated. “I expect he was trying to dull some of the pain from that . . . fight.”

  “Pain? I saw no signs.”

  He looked at her, his eyes narrowed for a moment. “O.K.,” he said at last, which meant in Nicholas-terms I don’t agree with you but I don’t care enough to argue. “Tell you what, you wash up, fix yourself up as best you can and I’ll mosey on down to the dining room and get us a table.”

  “I’ve got nothing to wear,” she objected, although her stomach was a tad empty, now that he mentioned it.

  “You’ll have to wear what you’ve got on.”

  She looked down at her crushed brown linen suit, with its soot-stained cream and gold embroidered underskirt. “My traveling clothes? Nicholas, they’re hopelessly stained and wrinkled, and were never appropriate for dinner, at any rate. A lady wears a gown to dinner.”

  A stubborn, mulish expression entered his eye. “It’s all you have, and you’re too smart to starve because you aren’t dressed to the nines. Don’t worry, tho’, I’ll make sure they seat us in a nice dark corner where nobody’ll see you.”

  She shook her head, exasperated. “You and I ensconced in a dark corner will provoke gossip.”

  “Less gossip, I expect, than you and I sitting here in your room together.”

  “Oh,” she said. “I hadn’t considered. Did anyone see you enter my room, do you think?”

  “No ma’am,” he reassured her. “Reckon I learned a thing or two about back-East discretion. Now go on, do your best. You look great to me, but women gotta fuss.” He stood. “See you in a few minutes?”

  “All right,” she said with a sigh, for there was no use arguing, not when her stomach was set to growl. As he strode to the door, she rose and crossed to a mirror over the dressing table. “Nicholas?”

  “Yeah?”

  She looked at him in the mirror. “You’ll meet me at the hotel desk, correct? A woman ought not to cross a lobby unescorted, you know, not if she can avoid it.”

  “Sure thing.”

  ***

  True to his word, Nicholas found them a table in the corner of the small dining room, di
mly lit by low gas jets. Wanting to avoid overwhelming Nicholas, Star had chosen a small hotel for their visit instead of the more fashionable block-long Grand Union. Now her choice seemed prophetic, for far fewer people would take note of her dishabille. Although she’d done her best to remove stains with a wet cloth and had added pearls in an attempt to improve the outfit, nothing could make it proper wear for dinner. As she pulled her chair in, a surreptitious scan of the room, thankfully, revealed no familiar faces. The knot in her shoulders eased.

  “You look a mite better,” Nicholas observed from across the table as she spread her napkin in her lap.

  She gave him a little smile. “Why thank you, sir. Very kind of you to remark on my previous state of squalor.”

  He grinned as he opened the menu. “Just sayin’ as how you’ve regained your color is all. Ah sh—shoot. This isn’t in English!”

  She chuckled as she opened her own menu. “No, it’s French, isn’t it?”

  “I sure don’t understand you Eastern folk. Why are you so obsessed with other languages? Isn’t plain old English good enough for you?”

  “Apparently not. Do you need assistance in translating?”

  “What I need is a steak. They got steak on this thing?”

  “They do. Repeat after me—”

  “No ma’am, I won’t. Can’t do it justice, no matter how much I try,” he said closing the menu and placing it on the table with a decided slap. “You order for me. Just make sure it’s steak and potatoes.”

  She tilted her head in question. “You’d permit a woman to order dinner for you? Doesn’t it harm your masculine sensibilities?”

  “Ma’am,” he said with a twitch of his lips, “my mangling the French language would do far more harm to your feminine sensibilities than you could do to mine. Besides, my ‘sensibilities’, as you call them, are a heckuvalot stronger than any words, either English or French.”

  “It’s not the words,” she said, laying her menu down. “It’s abdicating responsibility to a woman that might cause the harm.”

  “Only if I do the abdicatin’ when there’s a rabid cougar around. You aren’t such a great shot.”

  A sudden sweet warmth surrounded her heart as she chuckled. Oh, but it was so comfortably pleasurable to be with a man who wasn’t so wrapped up in his sex that he must lord his superiority over everything. “You seem determined, Nicholas, to bring that subject up time and time again. It is very ill of you, sir! I assure you I don’t require daily reminders of my poor marksmanship.”

  “Poor? God-awful more like, and I’m going to remind you as often as possible, so get used to it. Other than rowing, it’s the only thing I’ve ever beat you at, and my ‘masculine sensibilities’ gotta have a daily boost of confidence lessn’ you want them to be shot all to pieces.”

  “In all the time I’ve known you, I have yet to see anything come close to harming your belief in yourself or your masculinity. And I confess to having given it quite a few hits myself. I’m beginning to believe it’s impregnable.”

  His eyes gleamed back at her as the corner of his mouth twitched. “More n’ likely, although I wouldn’t want you to holler calf-rope. Never give up, that’s what I say.”

  She laughed as the waiter approached them. “If you bang your head against a brick wall too often, you’re ‘more n’ likely’ going to get nothing other than the headache! That’s what I say. Ah, sir, if you will,” she said turning to the waiter, “I shall be ordering for both of us.”

  Lifting his eyebrows, the man, tall and thin with a mustache, looked to Nicholas, who shrugged. “You heard the lady. My dinner is in her hands.”

  The waiter stared. He turned back to Star. “Why then, ma’am, what may I bring you this evening?”

  ***

  Sipping on his glass of water, Nicholas leaned back in his chair and listened to Star order their dinner in the smoothest French. She spoke effortlessly, like she’d been born in France. More important, though, her voice was calm, not like it’d been when he’d entered her room. Having spent most of his life fighting Indians, rustlers and the elements, it took a lot to rattle Nick, but seeing her pale and trembling had shaken him to the core. The last thing he wanted to do was bring up the blasted trunk. But he must. He figured it’d be easier to talk over dinner than in her room with the trunk and its contents sitting ten feet away, mocking him and his inability to protect her.

  Not that he was responsible for protecting her.

  Those who were responsible weren’t here, though. At the last minute, Lee had decided to remain behind to help the family with the yearly relocation to Newport. And, Nick suspected, because that relocation had intensified the strain between Jess and him.

  Which left Nick and Huntington, and Nick didn’t trust Huntington as far as he could throw him. He half-suspected Huntington was Romeo.

  At length the waiter left, and Star turned to find him staring at her. “Problem Nicholas?” she asked raising one silken black brow. In the gaslight her eyes gleamed a dark, seductive gold—prettiest eyes he’d ever seen.

  He shook his head. “No problem at all, just like the way you speak French. Orderin’ dinner is all, but you made it sound like poetry.”

  “Why thank you! A compliment from you, Nicholas, is rare indeed,” she said and miraculously a light blush colored her soft cheeks. He hadn’t thought the woman could blush. “I confess, however, it’s not me, but the language. All of French comes across that way.”

  “Not if I spoke it.”

  “Oh I ‘reckon’ you’d do just fine with practice.”

  “No reason to practice when you’re with me.” He paused to gentle his voice. “We still need to discuss that trunk.”

  She started. “What? Here? Nicholas, if someone should hear—the gossip. . . ”

  “No one’s near enough to hear us.” He’d passed a sawbuck to the headwaiter to guarantee their privacy. The headwaiter had discreetly shifted the tables surrounding theirs back and had left them mostly empty.

  Star glanced around. “So it appears. Did you arrange that?”

  “Wasn’t hard.” He hesitated. “I—uh arranged other matters too.”

  “And what matters might those be?”

  Taking a breath, he braced himself for her anger. “I asked the hombre at the desk to move your trunk to storage. Thought you might sleep better tonight without it in your room. If you want, though, I’ll have them return it.”

  She stared at him for a moment. Then, with a sweet smile, she said, “Why Nicholas, that is quite thoughtful. I hadn’t thought about it, but you’re correct, I shouldn’t have slept a wink.”

  “Not too high-handed then?”

  She shook her head. “No. Perhaps if you were another man . . . but no, you did it out of kindness.”

  “O.K.,” he said, relieved that he’d misjudged her. She was reasonable even if—passionate.

  Not the time to think of that. It was always hard not to, though, when he was with her.

  The waiter arrived with a bottle of wine. Turning it around, he showed Nick the label. It was in Spanish, which Nick couldn’t read if his life depended on it. He frowned up at the man. After a second, he shrugged and pretended to read the label. “Very good,” he said. Summoning up all Melinda had taught him, he performed the wine ritual. A short time later, they were alone again with two glasses of sherry.

  “You dealt with that very prettily, Nicholas,” Star said. “I’m impressed.”

  Her approval warmed his heart, for all that he thought the ritual idiotic. He’d never fit into her world, not entirely, but he could get by in a pinch. “Melinda taught me a few things.”

  “Apparently she knows quite a bit about Society.”

  “Her brothers sent her to a finishing school.” He paused, then added, “We still need to talk about that trunk.” Her face tightened and she nodded agreement, reaching for her water glass. “First thing, you’re going to need new clothes.”

  For all the wariness on her face, she man
aged a tiny smile. “Always practicality first with you, Nicholas. I suppose I could borrow something from Harriet MacMillan. She’s a fellow speaker. I’ll leave a message at the desk after dinner.”

  “She’s tall, then, like you?”

  Her eyes flickered. “No, but closer to my height than Jane.”

  “Good. Next thing to do is report this to the authorities. Talk to the train people, too. Might be somebody knows something. He’d have to have gotten into that baggage car.”

  She nodded slowly. “Yes, that’s a good idea. Of course, we don’t know for certain that it’s only one person. The movement has dealt with mobs many times. It’s even possible that others have been . . . targeted. I’ll question Harriet and the rest of the women tomorrow.”

  Nick frowned. “You think Romeo’s working with other men? I don’t know. That doesn’t ring true to me.”

  She tilted her head in that questioning manner that he found so appealing, and played with her earring. “Why no, but I doubt Romeo did this. He is, after all, in love with me. A man in love does not attack a woman’s personal effects. Moreover, to go from sending letters to—to following me? No, it’s a man, or group of men, who wish to stop the rally.”

  Damn. She hadn’t seen it then. . . . “Ma’am—Star. . . I guess you were too shocked when you opened that trunk to notice. It was Romeo. When he finished cutting up your clothes, he scratched his name on the bottom of the lid.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me.

  If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart

  Absent thee from felicity awhile

  And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,

  To tell my story

  Shakespeare, Hamlet

  The dining room swayed; the people around Star grew blurred and the sudden roaring in her brain drowned out the clinking of silverware and murmur of voices. No. No, Nicholas was wrong. She couldn’t have missed that.

  “Star?” Nicholas said in a low voice. He was leaning forward, his forehead crinkled in concern. His eyes fixed upon her, dark in the gaslight, as dark and mysterious as the midnight sky. . . .