When the others were gone, Cantlebury drummed his fingers on the table impatiently. “All right, enough with the suspense. What’s this about, Pence?
• • •
MATTHEW LAID OUT his theory and evidence to a skeptical Cantlebury and a thoughtful-looking Miss Speck.
“I spoke to Whitcombe earlier. He’s keeping an eye on the others. Him, I trust. You two as well.”
“And Miss Hardison,” Miss Speck pointed out. “I gather you trust her.”
He’d honestly forgotten that didn’t go without saying now. He could scarcely think about anything other than Eliza; of course he trusted her. Clearing his throat, he looked at the beautiful lady in question and caught her covering a smirk with her hand. He couldn’t kiss the smirk off her lips tonight, to his extreme woe.
“I trust her completely. The other three, I don’t know. But one of them could well be Orm’s man. Or woman. Statistically I suppose it would be more likely a woman at this point, but if Orm is involved with these Temperance Society types it seems unlikely he’d sponsor a female driver.”
Cantlebury pursed his lips, pondering. “Assuming, of course, that your theory about Orm is correct—and I grant you, I’m inclined to think it may be—why tell us and not the rally authorities? Or somebody in authority?”
“Tell them some women were wearing floral jewelry and I had a dream about my friend’s little brother harvesting poppies, therefore they should risk angering a wealthy, powerful baron? You only believe me because you know me. Besides, aside from the local constabulary, who would I report this to? There are a few army outposts in this part of Victoria, but there isn’t even a proper garrison until we reach Salt Lake City. As for the rally committee, all they can do is stop the race, and then where are we? I can’t stop now, I made a promise to Smith-Grenville. True, at the time I thought it was a promise that wouldn’t come to much. But if Orm does have slave labor taken from opium dens, if he really is as implicated as I think in all this, I owe it to Smith-Grenville to investigate. To at least look for Phineas at El Dorado. What’s more, I feel I may owe it to Phineas. I sometimes wonder if we haven’t all misjudged him. This drug business, it seems so wrong, so out of character for him.”
“Opium can change a person’s character,” Miss Speck reminded him.
“True. And I realize that my quest is not everyone’s. I’m going on, race or no race. Perhaps others would prefer to stop. I wanted to give you two and Whitcombe the information and let us all come to a decision together about whether to take it to the rally representatives.”
“Did Whitcombe give his proxy vote?” asked Cantlebury.
“He says he’ll go on if there’s a rally to race in. The longer he stays in this thing, the longer he’s away from home and his mother’s wrath over him losing. You’ve met the widow Whitcombe, I believe?”
“Indeed I have, and I’d fear her wrath too. Well, that’s two of you.”
“Three,” Eliza volunteered. “I’m going forward.”
Matthew knew she’d feel that way, but he still clenched his teeth when he heard her say it.
“Lavinia? What say you, my love?”
Miss Speck smiled at Cantlebury, her soft brown eyes shining. “Whither thou goest.”
He was caught off guard, struck dumb by her for a second or two.
Cantlebury cleared his throat before replying. “Who would have thought we’d have so much scripture in one evening? You know I’m staying in the rally too, right?”
She laughed. “Of course, darling.”
“Just wanted to be sure. So we’re at least five. Madame Barsteau is in ’til the end, I’d be willing to wager. I don’t know Parnell or Miss Davis well enough to guess.”
The serving girl returned to finish clearing. Once she’d gone, Cantlebury hopped from his chair and offered a hand to Miss Speck.
“Perhaps if any of us make it as far as Salt Lake, we can contact the garrison. But for now, it sounds as though we race tomorrow. Time for us to retire for the evening. Darling?”
“That’s a bit forward, don’t you think?” Matthew nodded at the couple’s joined hands.
Cantlebury looked supremely amused. “Not at all. I signed the registry as Mister and Missus. Nobody knows us from Adam here, Pence. We common folk don’t quite draw the attention you socialites do.”
“Oldest trick in the book. Good one, Cantlebury.”
“Will you wait a moment before you go?” Eliza asked, reaching for Matthew’s hand under the table and speaking low so only he could hear. “I should go up with them. I can’t be the last one here in the dining hall with you, it would only give the temperance ladies more grist for the mill.”
He turned her hand in his, rubbing a thumb across her palm and whispering back, “Does this mean I can’t even kiss you?”
“It would be begging for trouble. And don’t try sneaking into my room later either.”
“I would, you know. As the doctor said, the town belongs to the sinners after nightfall. When in Rome, and all that.”
“I wish you could, I’m not averse to further sinning with you. But you won’t. You mustn’t, Matthew.”
“I won’t. Sleep well and dream of me, sweetheart.”
Eliza suppressed a delicious shiver at the lewd things his fingers were doing to hers, then pulled her hand away reluctantly and spoke to Miss Speck and Cantlebury again. “Since you two are a respectable married couple, I’ll walk up with you, if you don’t mind chaperoning me as far as my room. Good night, Mr. Pence.”
“Good night, Miss Hardison. Cantlebury...s.”
• • •
SHOUTS AND SHRILL cries roused Matthew, instead of the gentle ring of his chronometer. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he stumbled to the window and pushed the sash up, raising the volume abruptly on the ruckus.
The sidewalks near the hotel, even the packed earth road, were crawling with Temperance Society members bearing their telltale signs. More townsfolk arrived as he watched, joining the fringes of the crowd and craning their necks to see into the hotel’s wide bay windows.
Dragging yesterday’s trousers, shirt and shoes on as he went, Matthew ran from his room. At the gallery overlooking the hotel’s common hall, however, he skidded to a halt and gaped at the spectacle below. The shrillest of the temperance ladies stood on one of the sturdy trestle tables, facing off against Eliza, who struggled to fend off a battering with a placard. Eliza wore breeches and a short jacket with a longer flounce in the back, and she appeared to be dripping wet from head to toe.
He shouted to her, but couldn’t make himself heard over the commotion. He had to worm his way down through layers of society ladies and others to descend the stairs and get to the table, where he could finally hear what they were shouting about.
“Shameless scofflaw!” screeched the woman, raising her sign to swat Eliza over the head with it.
“You’re mad as an inbred hatter, and stop hitting me with that ridiculous placard.”
The placard in question was a worse-for-the-wear white, and bore one word in large red letters. HARLOT.
“You’ve made your final mistake, Jezebel, and you’ll find out you’ve gotten too big for those britches when my husband arrives.” Her eyes held the manic gleam of the zealot.
“That doesn’t even make sense.”
Eliza made a fair point. Sidling past the last few ranks of crowd members, Matthew gained the side of the table at last and tapped on Eliza’s boot to get her attention.
“Good morning, Miss Hardison.”
“Matthew, do you have any idea what—ouch, stop that!” She raised her arm to block further cracks on the head with the placard, which fortunately seemed too light to do much more than annoy. “I woke early to give my steam car a quick rinse, went for a fresh bucket of water and found myself pushed into the trough. Pushed. And then this woman here—lunatic
, rather—started screaming about having me arrested for wearing trousers.”
“They’re breeches,” he noted.
“Thank you. I said the same thing and she insisted it was still against the law for a woman to wear them within the city limits.”
“Law-breaking hussy!” the woman confirmed. Her friends in the crowd babbled their support for this accusation, while the less temperate onlookers began to question one another about the law. If it were on the books, it didn’t seem the public in general knew of it.
“When I tried to return to my hotel room for dry clothes, there was this horde of temperance ladies barring my way. It’s outrageous.”
“I agree. Madam, I believe we need to rouse the gentlemen from the rally commission, and—”
“Mr. Hoover!” The woman shouted over him. “Arrest this woman!”
The sheriff, a tall, lean man with a handlebar mustache and one of the largest hats Matthew had ever seen, strode across the suddenly silent room, his spurs chinking against the dusty floor. He halted at the head of the table, forcing his wife to turn her back on Eliza in order to speak with him.
“Edith,” he drawled, then leaned to one side and doffed his hat with a nod at Eliza. “Miss.”
“Good morning, Sheriff Hoover.” She waved her fingertips at him with one hand, the other still keeping a wary guard against placard attacks.
“We’re all up a mite earlier than usual, wife. Seems to be some excitement.”
Mrs. Hoover drew herself up to her full height and stabbed a finger in Eliza’s direction. “Look at that, Mr. Hoover. Would you just look at that shameless display!”
The sheriff leaned over again and scanned Eliza’s wardrobe, raising his eyebrows slightly as he saw the shameless trousers in question.
“The young lady appears to be wearing britches. She also appears to have taken a swim. Or was it a dunking?”
“A dunking,” Eliza volunteered.
The sheriff nodded, rubbing his bristled chin thoughtfully. “And you’re standing on a table.”
“She ran up here to escape justice,” his wife explained huffily. “I followed her to secure her for you.”
“For me to do what, offer her a towel and a dry pair of britches?”
Even some of the temperance ladies laughed at that, Matthew noticed.
“To arrest her, you fool! For breaking the law!” She produced a folded piece of foolscap from her jacket pocket, brandishing it in her husband’s face. “Copied from the law books in your own office, Mr. Hoover.”
He ducked to avoid taking a blow from the paper, then snatched it and read the writing quickly.
“Edith, did you know it’s illegal to have a pigsty in front of a house in Dodge?”
“And what of it?”
“Do you know how many people in this town have pigsties in front of their houses? It’s also illegal for a man to relieve himself on the street here, by the way. He can use the side of a building, but not the street itself. That’s the law. Also illegal to perform a wedding ceremony for your goat, even if it’s to another goat. I can only assume there’s one hell of a story behind that one.”
For a moment the woman looked ready to back down, but a murmur from a few of her backers bolstered her indignation back to full steam. “This is a question of moral terpitude, husband. Turpitude!”
“Does anyone here actually know what turpitude is?” the sheriff asked the room at large, not seeming to expect an answer. “’Cause I don’t, and I figure maybe I’m missing out on something really interesting.”
Matthew snickered and caught a wink from the droll lawman. Then the crowd muttered and parted again to allow the two hastily summoned rally officials, a pair of timid-looking gentlemen who had assumed their assignment would end once they’d clocked the racers’ arrival and departure times. They’d deliver their results to the express rider who would begin a relay back to the last telegraph office in Meridian City, then take a slow coach back to New York City.
Neither man looked pleased to be awakened before it was even properly morning yet. And neither of them had any help to offer Eliza. The taller of the two, in fact, took one look at the developing situation and began to disclaim the rally committee’s legal responsibility for any and all actions performed by race participants in violation of local ordinance or royal decree, and so forth. He stopped only when Whitcombe, stepping up behind him, clapped a huge hand over his shoulder and met his frightened glance with a dead-level stare.
The sheriff raised his hands, quieting the hubbub. “Now, the law my wife has copied down here dates back to 1865. Probably should’ve been struck from the books a long time ago, along with the one about the goat-marrying. But the fact remains, it’s the law, and I’m sworn to uphold it. However—” He scowled and raised his voice above the crowd’s response. “However, the law Mrs. Hoover is referring to clearly states that it is unlawful for a woman to dress as a man by wearing trousers. Unless she’s holding the reins of a horse at the time, which doesn’t seem to apply here. So let’s think about that.”
“There is nothing to think about,” his wife interjected.
“Well, now, Edith, you’ve been running all over town with these other fine ladies, calling Miss Hardison all manner of names that suggest you don’t think much of her virtue. Up until yesterday I was ready to give you the benefit of the doubt, but having met the young woman now she seems to be quite a well-brought up young lady. Polite, pleasant, modest. I hear she wouldn’t even stay in this dining hall alone with Mr. Pence, there, lest somebody get the wrong impression. But all that aside, I have to ask you all, is there anyone in this room who thinks Miss Hardison’s getup there counts as dressing like a man?”
Everyone shifted, looking around one another for a better perspective. Matthew saw one man take a sharp elbow jab from the woman beside him, apparently for appreciating the view too much. Eliza’s breeches, tailored to fit her form perfectly when not sodden, were a dark aquamarine blue. Her short boots were hidden under navy brocade spatterdashes that rose nearly to her knees. Her jacket, which was clearly ruined now, had once been a delicate confection of ruffles in subtle gradations of blue, trimming a tight bodice of cream colored peau de soie. She looked more blatantly feminine than any other woman in the room.
“Perhaps if the man were an eighteenth century French courtier,” suggested a hidden voice Matthew recognized as Cantlebury’s. A ripple of amusement swept the room, and the mood relaxed a fraction.
“As this is not eighteenth century France, I think we can all agree the lady is not dressed like a man. Especially not a man from around these parts,” the sheriff added. “Furthermore, and correct me if I’m wrong, but those aren’t trousers she has on. They’re britches.”
“Breeches,” Eliza corrected, stressing the regional difference.
“All right then. Not dressed like a man and not wearing trousers. Edith, honey, I can’t arrest this young woman. Now let’s everyone go back outside and wait for the race gentlemen to send the drivers off.”
He lifted his still-protesting wife down from the table, and Matthew automatically offered Eliza a hand, then panicked, fearing she might rebuff him. To his relief, she simply took his hand and stepped down via a chair. To his delight, she kept her fingers clasped around his far longer than propriety called for. It wasn’t enough to make up for his lonely night, but it was something.
Though she smiled at the crowd around her, many of whom leaned in to offer words of encouragement, Matthew could see the strain she was hiding. When most of the spectators had dispersed, he bent close enough to whisper, “You were magnificent up there. And very brave.”
“What I am is very tired of this,” she replied. “I wish I were home. I don’t quite wish I’d never come in the first place, but I’m beginning to think you were right. This was no place for me.”
He shook his head. “No. I was wrong
, Eliza. You’ve come alive doing this. You’re more than strong enough. Anyone can see that, and I was a fool not to. You’re like a force of nature, and I think you’re the popular favorite to win this rally now. Otherwise Orm wouldn’t be wasting so much effort to target you.”
Sighing, she withdrew her hand and gave him a weak smile. “I’d better go get dressed. Again.”
He plucked at one of the ruffles near her neck, drawing away a soaked piece of dirty straw. Even bedraggled, she was beautiful. Still, she was very bedraggled. “Good idea.”
FIFTEEN
THE UPROAR OVER trousers delayed the day’s start by only fifteen minutes, when all was said and done. The sunrise glow had nearly faded from the clouds when the eight drivers set off toward Colorado Springs on their last road leg. Whitcombe, Parnell and Miss Davis took an early lead, taking off hell bent for leather as soon as they cleared the last buildings on the outskirts of town. Eliza led the other five in a loose file, spanning a mile or so along the almost invisible trail through the vast plains of the western Victoria Dominion.
That loose formation probably saved them.
The pirates struck from nowhere, hard and fast. Eliza saw their airships, two giant wind balloons with black sails, against the horizon ahead. She slowed, looking behind her for the others, then ahead in an attempt to spot the leaders. Blossoming fire made it all too easy. Something was exploding, and she only hoped it wasn’t one of her competitors’ steam cars.
At least it wasn’t as loud as the sinkhole had been. Braking more sharply, she rolled down her window as Cantlebury came abreast of her vehicle.
“Any idea?” he called, eyes on the explosions.
“I can only assume it’s the pirates. Do you have any weapons, Mr. Cantlebury? I have a small pistol, but I fear that wouldn’t do much good in this case. I’m not even sure where to aim.” The pirate ships’ balloons were not simple air-filled bags, or even the type with an internal honeycomb structure, but lumpy conglomerations of countless smaller ballonets. Unless one knew which were the critical spots, shooting might not even send the ship off its course.
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