Susan Johnson

by Susan Johnson

  Joy, lately arrested by hopelessness, flooded back in one intake of breath. Blaze’s spirits were singing wild songs of happiness while she casually said, “In that case, you’d best unlock that door permanently and slink off to Virginia. I don’t think it’ll be safe for you here.”

  “You didn’t hear me, did you?” he silkily drawled, his raspy voice incongruously harsh. “He’s not coming. He’s in Confederate Gulch. He’s in Rose’s bed in Confederate Gulch. And he has been for almost a month.”

  The words turned her to ice. There had to be some mistake. She was his wife. He’d said so. They were going to have a child. He wouldn’t have gone to Rose. He’d come after her.

  “My offer stands, little rich girl. Three weeks. Sign over power of attorney then, or I’ll have to resort to some ungentle persuasion.”

  Blaze rose from the loveseat and walked to the window before he saw how distressed she was, and he left when she refused to reply to his questions, but his parting words echoed gloomily in her mind: “Don’t wait for him, little rich girl. All those Injuns love ’em and leave ’em, and Hazard, hell, they say he sets records.”

  But she did wait. Despite it all. Despite Yancy’s vulgar assertions, despite the enormous distance separating them, despite the lingering uncertainty in her mind when she tried to think as Hazard might.

  At the end of the third week, Yancy came to her room as promised. She hadn’t signed in the interval. She’d held out. But when she saw him walk in that night, in his jacquard silk dressing gown, hand-braided ropes looped loosely over his arm, a hungry look in his colorless eyes, she’d half turned away and stared through the window overlooking the Charles River for a brief second. As she turned back, her small shoulders slumped a little. “That won’t be necessary,” she whispered. “I’ll sign.”

  Yancy left with her fortune in his pocket.

  And Blaze cried herself to sleep. Not tears for the loss of her inheritance, but tears for the loss of her love. He hadn’t come for her. He didn’t even care about his child. But then Jon Hazard Black had children already and lovers too. He’d probably even forgotten her name by now.

  YANCY and Millicent were up most of the night toasting their newly acquired wealth with the late Colonel Braddock’s rare, fine champagne.

  “He may have been a peasant, my dear, but he knew his wines,” Yancy remarked, uncorking another well-preserved bottle from the Colonel’s perfectly stocked cellar.

  “One positive quality in an otherwise flawed character is hardly enough to endear him,” Millicent replied, loath, even though indebted to her husband’s perspicacity in amassing a fortune she could now enjoy, to give him his due. “Peasant blood is peasant blood,” she emphatically declared.

  “Which brings to mind,” Yancy pointedly said, “a proposal to terminate said peasant blood.”

  Millicent laughed a trill little ripple. “You’re too late, Yancy. He’s been cold-dead these many weeks.”

  “I had in mind,” he paused, “his grandchild. Insurance,” he said, “against some future claim.”

  Millicent sat up from her lounging ease, perplexed. She set her champagne flute down. “How do you propose to do that?”

  “There’s a specialist in New York who takes care of girls in trouble.”

  “She’ll never agree to an abortion.”

  “She doesn’t have to agree. We have the power of attorney, now; we can tell her what to do, not ask.”

  “Where and when?” Millicent asked, immediately recognizing the future security in such an action.

  “The one everyone here goes to—Madame Restell’s21 in New York. There’s even a possibility,” Yancy added, “Venetia may not survive the abortion.” His brows rose suggestively.

  “That’s enough, Yancy. I don’t want to hear any more.”

  “As long as you don’t hear it, then?”

  “I refuse,” she replied, not at all flustered, only cautious, “to listen to any more.”

  “I know, love, you hate the details. Well, never mind, I’ll handle those.”

  “Better, I hope, than you did in the case of the Indian.”

  Yancy shrugged, nonchalant after three bottles of champagne. “Impossible to kill like a normal man … but two small claims don’t matter now, do they?… not with the millions we have.”

  It was easy to shrug off Hazard since he was two thousand miles away, but Millicent disliked loose ends, loose ends so close to home, so she inquired with a significant emphasis on each word, “When will you take care of our present detail?”

  “Tomorrow,” Yancy said with a smile. “First thing tomorrow.”

  Chapter 34

  Hazard stayed with Rose for slightly less than a month, and in that time summer slipped into autumn. Yancy had been right about Hazard sharing Rose’s bed, but implication and circumstance weren’t the same. Hazard could have made love to Rose, and once his arm began to heal, she’d said as much in an offhand, casual way, “No strings, Hazard, same as always. If you want. If you don’t, I understand too.” Years ago she’d given up the luxury of illusion.

  They’d been lying in bed when she brought it up. It was a warm, sunny late-summer morning and Hazard was fighting down memories of Blaze under the sun-dappled willows. “You’re too damned good to me, Rose,” he ruefully acknowledged. “The guilt is mounting.” He hadn’t touched her and his broken arm wasn’t an excuse anymore.

  She rolled over on her elbow, at the courteous declining, and looked him straight in the eye. “Why don’t you go after her, dammit?”

  “She doesn’t want me to,” he replied as plainly as she, “that’s why.”

  “How do you know?”

  “A note I found made it pretty clear.”

  “You think she knew of Yancy’s plans?”

  “Apparently.” The date on the note was etched on his liver. It preceded the invasion by a day. “She must have known about it somehow. Don’t ask me how.”

  “She didn’t really think you’d survive to read it. What was the point?”

  “I don’t know. Best I can figure, it would absolve her of any implication in my death. A gratuitous gesture out here where people die unnoticed every day. But they were probably operating under eastern rules of judicial procedure. It never hurts to be safe, especially if she was interested in having our child inherit the claim.”

  “Does it bother you? Having your child raised out there?”

  He allowed the anger to show for the first time, and Rose unconsciously sat up, retreating from the cold fury. “It outrages me if I allow it to,” he said tersely. “She told me she wanted to stay here, have the baby born in the mountains. I’ve never viewed myself as gullible, but damned if I wasn’t, Rose. Like a wet-behind-the-ears adolescent.”

  Rose touched him gently on the shoulder, her fingers warm and soothing. “You couldn’t have known.”

  “But I should have, Rose, dammit. I lived in that phony Boston society. I should have known better.”

  WHEN Hazard returned to his people, the comfort he sought never came. He saw Blaze in his memory wherever he turned: wearing her elkskin dress, trying to learn the Absarokee words, touching him when he sat in council, warm against him in the coolness of the night.

  He was alone, preferred it that way, so people talked. But never to his face. He didn’t sleep with any women. He didn’t go on the raids. When he hunted, he hunted alone. They worried, his clan and relatives and friends. It was as if the living spirit had left him. But he didn’t want help and he didn’t want advice. Then his evening visit to Bold Ax soothed the alarm. He was coming out of his black spell. Those sorts of negotiations were a good sign.

  It had been protection, rather than emotion, prompting his marriage proposal to Blue Flower. He needed a solid barrier, an unassailable fortification against the insidious, powerful yearning. Blue Flower was his fortification, marriage the final defense against his wanting Blaze. Blue Flower had said yes with joy that evening, and Hazard kissed her cheek lightly like a
monk.

  The first frost colored the cottonwood trees and quaking aspen all along the creek, the fragile leaves ablaze with emerald and crimson and gold. Wild rosebushes and kinnikinnick were like splashes of fire against the mountainsides. Hazard, looking bronzed and rested, was lounging under a shimmering mass of saffron-tinged cottonwood, half leaning against the tree trunk, seeking some peace of mind. The warm autumn afternoon was glorious, the tinted leaves above him shimmering in a light breeze.

  Two small children were playing near their mothers, who were preparing food for the evening meal. The children were two, probably less, because they toddled still on pudgy, unsteady legs. They were playing with soft toys made by their doting parents, vocalizing in their abbreviated version of Absarokee, giggling at their mother’s occasional nonsense chants. They were healthy, happy, loved, and playing under a sun shining on tribal lands fought for and defended under sixteen chieftainships.

  And suddenly Hazard wanted his child raised here with his people, with him. Not in Boston, where he deplored the grey, soot-coated snow in winter, the houses jammed one against the other, where you could never see a sunset slip below the horizon like liquid fire. He didn’t want his child reared in a Beacon Hill pile of stone filled with servants and no love, by a mother whose words were only coldly calculating business devices. The thought suddenly of his child raised in the teeming grey city made his skin crawl.

  So against all sensible argument, against the logic that had kept him firmly in Montana for weeks, against the rationale developed as a result of the three curt sentences in Blaze’s note, he walked back to his lodge and started packing.

  “In a hurry somewhere?” Rising Wolf asked from the sun-drenched doorway.

  “Boston.”

  “Need help?”

  Hazard tied his saddlebag shut with two quick jerks, snapping them forcefully. “No thanks,” he said. “I know how to handle her.” Then, straightening, he reached for his Colts and transferred them to the holsters belted on his hips.

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing? Remember your—”

  The icy rage wasn’t meant for him, but it stopped Rising Wolf midsentence. Hazard had the rancor under control by the next heartbeat and smiled an apology for his lapse. “I think it’s about time,” he explained coolly, a lazy arrogance nicely prominent, “Miss Venetia Braddock finds out that even millionaires’ daughters can feel the cut of the bit. She’s had her head long enough. I want my child.”

  “What if Blue Flower—”

  “She’ll do as she’s told.” His voice was curt. “One impertinent bitch a year is about my limit. See you in a month or so.”

  “With your child?”

  The smile cutting Hazard’s lean face was wolfish. “In a manner of speaking.”

  HE TOOK the stage from Diamond City two days later, the fastest mode of transportation; they traveled around the clock. If he’d ridden himself, he would have had to stop and rest. As it was, he slept most of the way, slouched in the corner of the stage to protect his still tender arm, his hat pulled down over his face. He wasn’t in the mood for conversation and simply didn’t reply when addressed. Passengers didn’t press a second sentence on the dark-skinned man dressed in black. He only moved noticeably once on the long miles to the rail line. Road agents held up the stage the third day east of Salt Lake City, and Hazard, his automatic response to violence swift and sure, shot them—all three—in less time than the human eye could follow. The five other passengers only saw him slip his smoking revolvers into their holster as easily as if he were putting away his change, pull his hat a little lower on his brow, and shut his eyes again. When the driver shouted his thanks down, Hazard grunted something inaudible. After that display of marksmanship, the passengers afforded him an even wider berth, but he heard the whispers: “Hired gun.”

  He reached Boston in record time—ten days, six hours, and thirty-two minutes.

  YANCY only told Blaze his plans an hour before he escorted her down the stairway to the waiting carriage.

  “I won’t,” she said, sharply combative. “You can’t make me.”

  “You don’t realize how many reluctant young women pass through Madame Restell’s,” Yancy smoothly drawled. “Parental pressure is quite common. You’ll be just another in a long line of young women who’ve unwisely chosen to love below their station in life. You’ll do it,” he bluntly said, all pretense of politeness gone, “if I have to tie you down to the table myself. And Madame Restell won’t ask any questions when I offer to double her fee.”

  “I’ll tell her about you.”

  “She won’t believe you. All you young darlings get hysterical when you can’t marry your dancing instructor or groom or gamekeeper. And even if your story’s a bit different, she’s not in the counseling business. She hasn’t built the grandest mansion on Fifth Avenue by turning lucrative business away. We leave in an hour, so don’t waste your breath.”

  Realizing argument was useless, Blaze acquiesced. She at least would be out of her locked room, and escape was more probable than in her current circumstances.

  She dressed carefully. Since she was in mourning, her string of black pearls wouldn’t attract notice. She would have liked to empty her jewel case into her reticule, but didn’t dare. Yancy was very likely to search its contents, and if she was carrying a fortune in jewelry out of the house, he’d dash her chrysalis plans. Today was the first time in three weeks she’d been allowed out of her room, the first time there was even a remote possibility of escaping.

  The black pearls drew no undue notice against the black silk of her gown; she had simply chosen the most appropriate jewelry for her mourning. She had also chosen the most costly of her jewels, for in their rarity black pearls exceeded any other gem. And their value, appropriately dear, was about to buy her freedom. If Madame Restell was the businesswoman Yancy said she was, Blaze was certain she could be persuaded to let Blaze escape Yancy.

  Not only Yancy, Blaze discovered on approaching the carriage, but two hired thugs as well. Two burly, beefy men towered over her, one on either side of the carriage door, as she stepped into the curtained brougham. Her expression remained suitably contrite on the trip to the station and on the train ride into New York, but her mind was busily contemplating the myriad details of her flight. The time required for an abortion should allow her at least a modest head start before Yancy discovered the deception. If she could reach her father’s bank in New York, she could draw out funds for her trip west from her trust. Best avoid the train stations, she decided. She’d hire a carriage and driver for the first two or three days and board at Baltimore or Washington. No one would be expecting her to head south.

  Chapter 35

  Millicent Braddock looked every inch the upper-class lady. She wore a plum silk mourning dress with only two strands of small matched pearls. Her light hair was immaculate in a ribboned chignon, her posture upright, her hands gracefully clasped in front of her. She had just set aside her first cup of tea and was standing at the window admiring the late roses in the small garden adjacent to her writing room.

  The door swung open sharply and she turned irritably to chastise the servant imprudent enough to enter without first knocking.

  “Where is she?” It was an order in a tone that disregarded entirely her position and the ambiance of a stately thirty-room mansion on Beacon Street.

  For long enough to appear rude, she didn’t answer. “I beg your pardon,” she finally said. “Who do you think you are barging in here?” He only looked at her with a withering glance. “She doesn’t want to see you,” Millicent acidly declared.

  “Get her down here.”

  “She doesn’t want to see you.” The repeated phrase was haughty and dismissive.

  “I’m going up.”

  “She isn’t there,” she blandly said.

  He stopped halfway to the door and spun around. “Then where is she?”

  “Away,” said the mistress of 12 Beacon Street, sweet contempt
in her voice.

  “Obviously. Where?”

  “It’s hardly your business.”

  “Don’t push your luck, Millicent. Where is she?”

  “I’ll have you thrown out. I will not tolerate this flagrant violation of my home. If you do not leave instantly—”

  “Cut the affronted southern belle. Do you think I give a damn what you want?” He shook his head almost imperceptibly. “Besides, you and I both know there’s no one here that can throw me out. Now. You have exactly ten seconds to tell me where Blaze is or I’m going to strangle you right where you stand.”

  “Haven’t you done enough to her already?” Total iciness. The prospect of being strangled in broad daylight in one’s home could be discredited as mere rhetoric.

  He looked up from the heavy gold watch he’d pulled from his vest pocket. “She told you that?”

  “She did.”

  “Then we differ on the particulars of who did what to whom,” said Hazard levelly. “Five seconds.”

  “You can’t intimidate me, you rude savage!” Her grey eyes were icy pits of cold outrage.

  “Three.” A cabochon gem of some price on the hand holding the watch caught the sunlight and flashed a subtle green prism.

  “You won’t get another word out of me.”

  “Pity. Two.”

  Malevolent and assured, Millicent said, “Yancy will kill you when he returns.”

  A quick glance up to assimilate that interesting fact. Yancy was gone. He hadn’t been sure. His eyes returned to the watch held in his large, steady palm. “One. That’s it. Say your prayers.” Snapping the case shut, Hazard pocketed the engraved gold watch and moved across the room with astonishing speed. She tried to run, but he was firmly blocking her path.

  “New York!” Millicent squealed, raw reality shockingly apparent when Hazard reached out toward her.

  “Big city,” he casually said, slipping his slender fingers around her neck and dragging her toward him. Their faces were so close she could feel the heat from his skin.