by Craig, Emma
The two Madrigals sat in silence while they buttered their muffins. Sophie contemplated her breakfast with satisfaction, glad that she was able to enjoy food again. Juniper’s voice startled her.
“I don’t know why you were so rude to that nice Mr. Caine yesterday, Sophie.” Aunt Juniper took a savage bite from her muffin, the greatest show of pique Sophie had seen from her in a long time.
As for herself, Sophie heaped jam on her own muffin and gave her aunt one of her more jaundiced squints. “That ‘nice’ Mr. Caine is a thoroughgoing scoundrel, Aunt Juniper. I’m surprised you couldn’t tell that about him, given the family predilections and all. You, of all people, can usually tell the genuine article from the quacks.” She was ashamed of herself when a stricken look crossed Juniper’s face. Although she didn’t think he deserved it, Sophie modified her assessment.”Although he was very nice to you, and he did help us in the train station. I’ll give him credit for that.”
“Oh, Sophie, I wish your unhappy experiences hadn’t hardened your heart so. Not all men are bad, dear, and the world isn’t really such a terrible place. Truly it isn’t.”
The pain she strove like a Trojan to keep under control struck Sophie’s heart so suddenly and so sharply that she had to squeeze her eyes closed against it. Her muffin dropped from her fingers and she pressed them to her eyelids, as if in that way she could push the agony away. Her efforts this time, as always, were ineffective. Her other hand gripped the edge of the table hard. She felt Aunt Juniper’s small hand cover hers, and ruthlessly choked back tears.
“Oh, Sophie, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
With a great effort of will, Sophie managed to withdraw her hand from her eyes, open them, and smile at her aunt.”You didn’t hurt me. Don’t fret, Aunt Juniper. I’m fine, I assure you. Just a touch of headache all at once.”
Juniper scanned Sophie’s face, trying to judge the truth of her assurance. She didn’t smile back. “Are you sure, dear? You know I’m always happy to consult the cards for you. Truly, Sophie, they can give you relief and hope. The cards and prayer together can’t fail to bring comfort and ease the pain in your heart. God sees everything, Sophie dear. He’s watching over you, even if you don’t want to believe it. God is the Universal Mind, dear, whether you admit it or not. Your unhappiness and disbelief can’t hurt Him, but He can give you comfort if you choose to ask for it. He knows everything and can help you so much, if you give Him a chance.”
Where was God when Joshua died? Sophie wanted to scream. Because she knew if she did, Juniper would first be hurt and then spout more of her endless platitudes, she didn’t. She said, “Thank you, Aunt Juniper. You already know what I think about the cards.” And the Universal Mind. She didn’t add that part. While Sophie didn’t know if she really disbelieved in God, she knew from bitter experience that He didn’t much care what went on down here on this planet.
Juniper shook her head sadly. “You know, Sophie dear, you do your mother and father a great disservice by speaking of them and their work as if they were fakers preying on a gullible public.”
“Well?” The word popped out of Sophie’s mouth before she could stop it. She and Juniper had carried this discussion around with them for years, like baggage. Neither of them would ever change the other’s mind. Sophie knew it even if Juniper didn’t. Because she loved Juniper very much and hated to hurt her feelings no matter what her own were, she added hastily, “I’m sorry, Juniper. I know how much these things matter to you. I didn’t mean to be hateful.”
Juniper shook her head again. “You’re not hateful, dear. You couldn’t be. But, oh, Sophie, your mother and father loved you so much. It would hurt them to hear the way you’re talking now. They went through so much in order to be together.”
There went the pain again, stabbing into her heart like one of her Uncle Jerome’s carnival knives. Sophie was prepared for it this time. She didn’t so much as flinch.
“Yes, Aunt, I do know it. I loved them too.” She picked up her fallen muffin, prepared to enjoy her breakfast in spite of everything. “And the family is still a nest of quacks and fakers, no matter what you say.” She smiled and twinkled at her aunt to pad her words’ sharp spikes. “Except for you, Aunt Juniper. I know you honestly believe in all of this . . .” She waved her hand, unwilling to label Juniper’s beliefs with another disparaging term and unable to think of a polite one.
Juniper tutted and gave up. “You’ll learn one of these days, Sophie dear. I know you will. The cards told me so, and the cards don’t lie, no matter what you think you believe.”
“In that case, perhaps you’d best do a reading on your friend, Mr. Caine. If the cards don’t lie, I’m sure they’ll tell you he’s a villain.”
As usual, Sophie’s sarcasm sailed right over Juniper’s head. Her eyes were as round and shiny as gold eagles when she said, “I already did, dear, and you’re quite wrong about him.”
Sophie repressed a sigh of resignation and took another bite of her muffin. She didn’t say anything.
“Now, they indicate quite clearly that he lacks faith, covers his internal pain with a dry and sarcastic wit, and that his past is clouded.” She frowned, as if trying to clear up the clouds in her own mind. “There may have been—improprieties.”
“I’ll bet.” Improprieties, indeed. Sophie would lay odds that the man’s past was as black as tar.
“No, really, dear. He himself is unsure of his future path and unclear about his own merits, but if he channels the goodness inside of him, it will lead him to do great things. Heroic things.”
Heroic. Sophie couldn’t stand it. She nodded, declined comment, and continued to eat. Merciful heavens, how had she ended up in this family? The merciful heavens didn’t deign to answer her this morning.
Sophie wasn’t surprised. They’d never once answered a prayer of hers. She’d come to the conclusion some months ago that if God and the heavens existed, they evidently didn’t like Sophie Madrigal very much. Well, she didn’t like them either, so they were even.
“And that’s not all, Sophie.” Juniper’s voice had taken on a quality of excitement. Sophie could tell she was warming to her subject, just as she’d warmed to Gabriel Caine the prior day. Sometimes Sophie wished her aunt were more discriminating in her acquaintances. Often, in fact.
“He’s well grounded in the spiritual life, Sophie. The cards said he was. He’s searching for something, and he has no idea it’s within himself. He has a definite gift, dear. I perceived it plainly.”
“Is that so?” Good heavens. If Juniper thought that, Sophie despaired of her. If there were a spiritual bone in Gabriel Caine’s entire large body, Sophie would eat Tybalt’s wicker basket.
“Indeed it is. I also perceive that his future is somehow entangled intricately with—”
“Good morning, ladies.”
Sophie stiffened. Wonderful. As if her aunt had conjured the devil out of the air, here he was. Sophie didn’t bother to respond, or even to look at him. She could feel his smile where she sat and didn’t want any part of it.
“It’s a beautiful day, Miss Sophie, Miss Juniper.”
Sophie heard him rub his hands together briskly. In her mind’s eye she pictured him, tall, handsome, and elegant—the quintessential gentleman traveler, taking breakfast with his fellow passengers.
She didn’t believe it for a second. She knew him to be a black-hearted scoundrel, even if Juniper couldn’t be brought to recognize reality, because all men who looked like him and were charming and attractive were black-hearted scoundrels; they couldn’t seem to help themselves. Sophie’d learned that lesson the hard way. And early. Very early. She did, however, wonder what Juniper perceived his future was intricately entangled with. The law, as like as not. The wrong side of it.
“Oh, yes! Yes, it’s perfectly lovely out, isn’t it, Mr. Caine?”
Juniper sounded as happy as a child with a new toy.
“It certainly is, Miss Juniper.”
Sophie could hear the smile in his voice. She’d bet anything he’d dressed in black again this morning. Black should be a sober, discreet color, yet on Gabriel Caine it looked positively dashing. He knew it, too, the bounder.
“Oh, Mr. Caine!” Aunt Juniper started to rise, sat down again, blushed, and fluttered her napkin at him. Sophie wanted to wring Juniper’s neck. The man already thought he was God’s gift to womankind; it irked her to have Juniper confirm him in his inflated opinion of himself.
“Oh, Mr. Caine,” Juniper repeated. “Please join us for breakfast. The food on the train is so delicious, you know.”
Sophie aimed a quick kick at Juniper’s ankle. Juniper, anticipating such a warning from her niece based on past experiences, had already tucked her feet safely away under her chair.
“I’d be delighted to join you two ladies, if I wouldn’t be interfering.”
“Oh, no—”
“Actually, we were having a private conversation, Mr. Caine,” Sophie said, drowning out Juniper’s words.
“We weren’t either,” Juniper said, astonishing her niece.
She glared at her aunt. “No?” She gave Juniper one of her dangerous looks. For the first time since Sophie could remember, Juniper glanced away from her and defied that look. Sophie was dumbfounded. “We had been chatting, Mr. Caine, but about nothing at all significant. It would be a pleasure to take breakfast with you.”
“Thank you very much, Miss Juniper.”
Deciding she had to look at him sometime, Sophie shifted her dangerous glare to Gabriel. He merely raised his left eyebrow in the most ironical expression she’d ever seen. Drat! The man was on to her. It didn’t matter. Sophie could ignore the most practiced advances of the most practiced flirts. She’d learned how a long time ago.
She lifted her muffin again—and suddenly gave a thought to her weight. Although Sophie was not a slim girl, she hadn’t troubled herself about her weight in ages.
Of course, after Joshua died, she’d virtually stopped eating. For eight or ten months, she’d been so devastated byte shattering grief of loss, she’d walked around in a fog of it. Her will to live crushed, she’d been unable to eat more than enough to sustain life. She didn’t want to eat even that much, but eating was easier than listening to Juniper harp at her. She’d lost weight then. In fact, Juniper had despaired of her. Her clothes had hung on her like rags on a scarecrow.
So gradually that she wasn’t even aware of it, the sharp edges of her anguish had blunted until the pain had become more of a constant, dull ache of sorrow, only flaring to sharp life occasionally. Then Juniper had given her the little pug puppy that Sophie had named Tybalt, and she’d gradually dragged herself back among the living. At last she’d discovered herself able to eat without feeling sick.
And then the notion of exacting revenge had occurred to her, and her life had opened up. She had finally discovered a reason for continuing this wretched existence and, as a consequence, began to enjoy food again. Food was her only joy now. Food and Tybalt. And, since Tybalt shared her love of food, the pairing of the two had been an inspiration on Juniper’s part.
After she’d fulfilled her plan, her life would be complete, and she wouldn’t know what to do with herself anymore. But Sophie couldn’t make herself care what happened after that. She’d have done her duty.
Generally, therefore, Sophie didn’t give a thought to her weight. Only women who were trying to attract men worried about such nonsense. Sophie was definitely not one of those.
Yet today, this morning, she found herself wishing she weighed twenty or thirty pounds less than she did. On account of Gabriel Caine. She tried to lie to herself, couldn’t do it, and hated herself for succumbing to such a nonsensical female anxiety. As if she should care about what he—or any other man—thought of her as a woman. Yet she did care. Damn him for upsetting her equilibrium.
“Where’s your—er—little fellow in the overalls this morning, Miss Juniper?” Gabriel asked, serenely unaware of Sophie’s inner turmoil.
Sophie would have laughed at herself if she were alone. Why should he be aware of it? Traditionally women pretended that their every living breath wasn’t wasted on the impossible task of trying to make men care. Traditionally women lied to themselves.
“Dmitri never rides with us or takes his meals with us, Mr. Caine,” Juniper said. “He prefers to guard our baggage.”
“He’s a midget, Mr. Caine,” Sophie said bluntly. “It embarrasses him to be gaped at by rude people.” She watched him and deliberately took a big bite of her jam smeared muffin. Let him consider her fat; she didn’t care. She wished she believed it.
“Is that so? I’m sorry to hear it.”
His tone was so mild, Sophie was embarrassed by her own show of antipathy.
“He’s a Russian, Mr. Caine,” Juniper said in a confiding whisper. “I understand Russians always feel things deeply.”
“Is that so?”
“Unlike the rest of us,” muttered Sophie.
She had taken to frowning at Gabriel, and was unprepared for the grin that suddenly spread over his face. He turned it on her, full-bore, and she felt it in every inch of her body.”Oh, I suspect we all feel the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Miss Sophie. Some folks try to hide from them, some folks brazen their way through them, and some folks erect stone walls with spikes on them to try to keep ‘em out.”
Like me. She knew he was talking about her. “You seem to know a lot about your fellow men, Mr. Caine.” She gave him a smile of her own, and hoped it was as cold and pointy as an icicle.
“A bit,” he said, still grinning. “A bit. And you, Miss Sophie? Do you like to study your fellow men?”
She stared at him for a second or two, wondering why he was persevering in the face of her undisguised antagonism. She couldn’t figure him out. At last she said, “I leave such nonsense to Aunt Juniper, Mr. Caine. Personally, I don’t care.”
He mouthed the word liar, and Sophie felt as though he’d reached into her soul and squeezed her heart. Damn him!
* * * *
The bitch. The cold-blooded bitch. What the hell was the matter with her? Gabriel had never seen a woman like Sophie Madrigal before—and until this minute, he’d believed he’d seen them all. Maybe she was one of those man-hating females whose lack of prospects had made them bitter.
Eyeing her from across the table—overtly, since he saw no reason to be polite if she wasn’t—he decided that wasn’t the answer. No female with Sophie Madrigal’s blond beauty and buxom charms could have been ignored by the other members of Gabriel’s sex. There was too much of her, and it was too gorgeous and way too lush to ignore. No. There must be another reason for her hostility.
Perhaps the answer was as simple as that she’d been born mean. Perhaps there was a deeper reason. Perhaps she’d been seduced and abandoned. Abused in some way. For the life of him, he couldn’t fathom why he cared. What the hell difference was it to him how this female had come to be such an unpleasant bit of goods?
Sophie lifted the lid on the wicker basket sitting on the chair next to her, gave her ugly dog a piece of breakfast sausage, and Gabriel realized there was his answer. Right there in that basket. That silly, squash-faced dog. Somewhere under Sophie Madrigal’s prickles was a heart. Not, of course, that Gabriel had any desire to touch her heart, but it might be fun to figure her out. God knew, he had enough time in which to do it. If he worked at it, he might at least be able to touch the rest of her, which was an alluring prospect all on its own.
“So, Miss Juniper,” he said, aiming one of his warmest smiles at Sophie’s aunt, “did you consult the cards last night after you gave me my lesson?”
“Yes, I did, Mr. Caine.”
And that was another thing: Miss Juniper Madrigal. Miss Sophie and Miss Juniper might have belonged to separate races of mankind altogether, for all the differences existing between them. Yet they had sprung from the same family of charming fortunetellers. Also, no matter how much she tried t
o hide it, Sophie cared about her aunt.
Aunt Juniper’s tiny hand covered his for a moment, a gesture that touched something deep in Gabriel’s chest. “And Mr. Caine, I did a reading on you, too!” She flushed and jerked her hand away.
“Did you now? And what did the cards tell you, ma’am? Or do I want to know?”
She giggled like a schoolgirl. He couldn’t help but like Juniper. She was as different from her niece as a fluffy little kitten was from a Bengal tiger. He heated his grin up a degree just to see if her blush could get hotter. It could, it did, and he was enchanted.
“Oh, la, Mr. Caine! I’d never even have told you if the cards had said something awful. I don’t believe in frightening people, you know.”
“No?”
“Well, of course, I sometimes will give people a gentle warning,” Juniper said seriously. “But, you know, the cards don’t speak in absolutes. They might be able to hint a person away from a possible problem, but they aren’t to be considered akin to the Oracle at Delphi.”
“I see. And you’ll tell a person if a problem is looming?” It tickled him that Juniper was so earnest about those cards of hers.
Juniper tucked in her chin. “If I can. I believe it to be my duty to help people in that way.”
“That’s very nice of you, ma’am. And exactly what I’d expect of a kind heart like yours.”
Gabriel grinned when Juniper got flustered by his praise and uttered several unrelated words, as if she were trying to begin a sentence but didn’t know what she wanted to say or how to go about saying it.
“Of course, as I’m sure you’re well aware, Mr. Caine, it’s all bunkum.”
“Oh!” Juniper looked stricken when Sophie’s stark declaration smote her ears.
Gabriel, watching as Juniper seemed to wither under Sophie’s caustic scorn, wished he could paddle the exasperating Sophie. He turned to find her glaring at him, her eyes flashing. She had wonderful eyes. They were hazel, he guessed. Today they looked green, probably picking the color up from the green velvet doodads trimming her collar.