by Craig, Emma
Sophie really didn’t like men. Except Dmitri. And Tybalt. And her father and uncle, she supposed, although the former was a stretch. Oh, very well, perhaps she didn’t dislike all men—only the horrid ones. Unfortunately, there seemed to be an awfully lot of horrid men extant in Sophie’s universe.
She caught her breath on a sob, and told herself to get a grip on her emotions. She had learned about her father and mother the hard way, but she had learned, and they had loved her with all the love they had to give. And she’d loved them back. It was evil of her to be thinking unkind thoughts about them now, just because she was upset.
Still raging, she swept past the registration desk, where she saw from the corner of her eye that the clerk was watching her warily, lifted Tybalt in her arms, and strode up the stairs to the second floor of the hotel, defying her corset and the laws of human anatomy.
She was suffering from lack of oxygen when she finally stormed to the door of her room, set her dog down, and began fumbling in her reticule for the room key. By this time, she was near to passing out, but she wouldn’t give Gabriel Caine the satisfaction of watching her fail. Before she had found the key, the door opened. Sophie looked down at her mild-mannered aunt’s prettily vague face and growled, “We have company, Aunt Juniper.”
Juniper was holding the cards in her hand. Sophie was not surprised. Her aunt lived by those foolish cards. Also, far from looking angry, as Sophie deemed appropriate, Juniper took one glance around Sophie’s large form blocking her view, saw Gabriel standing in the hall, and smiled as if she’d never been so happy to see anyone in her life.
Exasperated and about to faint from lack of breath, Sophie huffed angrily and went into the room, where she stepped behind the Chinese screen in the corner, ripped the buttons of her shirtwaist open, and loosened her corset. What a relief. She would never, ever, for as long as she lived, lace it tightly again, Gabriel Caine or no Gabriel Caine. Let him think her fat. What did she care, damn him?
And Gabriel, of course, had no earthly idea she’d tormented herself on his behalf, the rat. And, if he ever learned of it, her foolishness would probably merely amuse him. Sophie wished she could heave something heavy at him.
Instead, she rudely interrupted the friendly conversational greetings he and Juniper were exchanging. Dmitri, she noticed, had removed his cloth cap and now stood in a corner, looking morose and observing the scene as if he expected it to be broken up by a herd of rampaging Cossacks any second. Maybe Juniper was right about the Russians.
“Mr. Caine refuses to leave me alone about Mr. Hardwick, Aunt Juniper, and he threatens to dog our footsteps as we try to find him, so I suppose we’ll have to put up with him.”
Chat ceased immediately, and Gabriel and Juniper turned to look at her. Juniper said, “Oh?” She glanced back at Gabriel. “How nice, Mr. Caine.”
Sophie chuffed.
Gabriel, smiling wolfishly, said, “Need any help, Miss Sophie?” in a voice so perfectly innocent, Sophie’s desire to heave heavy things at him rushed back into her body with energy. She grabbed her shirtwaist so precipitately, she nearly upset the screen.
“No. Thank you,” she said in the most frigid tone in her repertoire. “But we’re going to have to talk about this. I most certainly don’t like the notion of you following us about all over the country in pursuit of this demon, Hardwick. Since, however, there seems to be no way to stop you—”
“Right,” Gabriel said obligingly, and sat on the small loveseat against the wall at Juniper’s gestured suggestion.
“—then at least we can formulate some ground rules.”
“Ground rules?” He lifted one of his gorgeous black eyebrows over one of his gorgeous brown eyes, and Sophie’s heart squeezed painfully.
None of this was fair. After months of existing in a pit of hellish pain, she’d finally discovered some motivation to life—had even begun to take some meager interest in living the rest of it—and here was a man; a big, handsome man; the kind of man Sophie could have loved madly if she didn’t know better, ruining the only thing that gave her life meaning. She felt a sudden, severe compulsion to cry, which she throttled ruthlessly.
“Yes,” she said coldly. “Ground rules.”
Much more comfortable in her loosened garb, she stepped out from behind the screen and stood before Gabriel, who looked her over with what appeared to be great pleasure. The bounder. She wished she could ignore the spurt of pride and gratification that shot through her when she realized he found her desirable.
A man’s desire, and her responsiveness to it, is what had started this whole miserable journey of hers. She’d spent her life ever since trying to rid herself of any remaining hint of carnality. If she hadn’t done so yet, it wasn’t for want of trying, but her lack of success rankled and made her spirits droop considerably.
Juniper, her cards laid sedately aside, her hands folded in her lap as she sat in a straight-backed chair, smiled up at Sophie with her customary vague pleasantness and said, “What kinds of rules are those, Sophie, dear?”
Sophie turned on Juniper, who was startled by her vehemence. Drat. Poor Juniper always seemed to suffer from Sophie’s strong-mindedness, and Sophie always felt sorry about it—but not sorry enough to desist, or to reign in her energy beforehand. “Those are the kinds of rules that will assure us Mr. Caine won’t be forever poking his nose into business that doesn’t concern him.”
Juniper blinked up at her, plainly puzzled. “I don’t think I understand, dear.”
“Neither do I,” said Gabriel.
Sophie shot him a glare. “What I mean is that when Juniper and I are conducting business—business unrelated to Ivo Hardwick—you can jolly well keep your distance. That’s what I mean.”
Gabriel rubbed his chin. Sophie noticed Dmitri still standing in a corner and told him to sit down if he wanted to. He thought for a moment, looked from her to Gabriel to Juniper, then said, “Nyet. I go to room.”
Giving a thought to Emerald Huffy, Sophie said, “Fine. Thank you for helping me this morning, Dmitri. If Mr. Huffy should get in touch with you, please let me know as soon as possible. Did you hire a parlor downstairs for this evening’s work?”
He nodded, and Sophie relaxed enough to give him a genuine smile. She appreciated Dmitri a lot, even though she didn’t often say so. She did so now. “Thank you very much, Dmitri. I don’t know what we’d do without you. You’re so very efficient.”
“My goodness, yes, you are!” Juniper agreed happily. She beamed upon Dmitri.
Sophie thought how nice her own life would be if she were more like her aunt: if she were able to believe, without doubting, in the cards and crystal balls and so forth. But, no. Her fate couldn’t be that simple, could it? The only time she felt an otherworldly connection was when she was in the presence of Gabriel Caine, the man who, although he didn’t know it, was set to defeat her life’s one ambition. It simply wasn’t fair.
Without smiling or showing his pleasure at being appreciated in any way, Dmitri clicked his heels together, bowed sharply, and departed. Sophie almost laughed when she saw Gabriel gape after him. “He always does that, Gabriel. He used to be a footman in some Russian prince’s palace or something.”
“A footman? A midget?”
Sophie sniffed. “Evidently, the prince found it amusing to have little people waiting on him.”
From the expression on his face, Sophie gathered he felt the same disgust at the prince’s callous enjoyment as she did. Which was moderately distressing, as she didn’t want them to be alike in any way. However, that was nothing to the point. She sat next to Juniper in the room’s other straight-backed chair. “Now, do you agree that when my aunt and I are working, you should stay away from us?”
He seemed to have to drag his attention away from the door and lingering thoughts of Dmitri. When he spoke, however, it was in answer to Sophie’s question. “As to that, I’m not sure I can trust you, Sophie, if you’ll forgive me for saying so.”
Ju
niper giggled. Sophie scowled at her, then looked at Gabriel. “I don’t know why I should. What reason do you have for not trusting me?”
A lopsided grin visited Gabriel’s gorgeous mouth. Sophie wished like thunder that she didn’t find him so blasted attractive. “Well, now, ma’am, it might have something to do with the fact that you seem to hate my heart and liver. And gizzard, too, unless I miss my guess.”
“Human beings don’t have gizzards,” Sophie ground out through clenched teeth. “And I don’t hate you.” She hated lots of things about him, the good Lord knew, but she couldn’t honestly say she hated him.
“Could have fooled me, ma’am.”
She wasn’t sure about that, actually, since she’d tried to fool him a couple of times and he hadn’t bitten, but she didn’t enlighten him. “I hate the fact that you foiled my purpose in that alleyway,” she said. “And I hate the fact that you seem determined to follow my footsteps wherever I go.”
He held up a hand. “Only if you go in the direction of Ivo Hardwick. I’ve been hired to bring him back to Abilene to stand trial. That’s the only reason I care about Hardwick.”
“Yes, so you’ve said.” Sophie wished that were the only reason for her own interest in Hardwick. She tapped her chin with a fingernail that needed attention. Blast. She had to fix herself up if she was going to make a good impression on the customers this evening. There were lots of things besides the gullibility of the public and their scorn for her that she disliked about the family business.
“However, I do think I can trust Miss Juniper,” Gabriel continued. “I get the feeling she and I are on the same side in this instance.” He gave Juniper one of his beautiful smiles.
Juniper smiled back and began gushing. “Oh, my, yes, Mr. Caine! I’ve told Sophie over and over that I know this pursuit of hers is going to end badly. It’s wrong to seek vengeance, and—”
“Juniper!”
Sophie hadn’t meant to roar quite so loudly, and when Juniper jumped in her chair and slammed a hand to her heart, she regretted it. She would not, however, allow her chatty aunt to tell Gabriel Caine her story.
Her feelings hurt, Juniper said in a shaky voice, “You know I would never say anything you don’t want me to say, Sophie.”
Sophie felt awful. She didn’t trust sweet Juniper, though, not in the way Gabriel didn’t trust Sophie—Juniper would never, ever tell a lie, for instance—but because Juniper wasn’t strong like Sophie. Juniper might one day be compelled by some feeling of guilt or compassion or even love to tell Gabriel that which Sophie chose to keep to herself. She wasn’t sure she could survive if her story became known by him. Some things were too precious to be shared with just anyone, and Sophie’s memories of Joshua were golden to her.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m sure you would never do so on purpose. I don’t think we need to go into how much you don’t approve of what I’m doing. I know you disapprove, Mr. Caine knows you disapprove. Even Dmitri knows it. I’m doing it anyway.”
Juniper shook her head. “It’s not disapproval, Sophie. It goes far deeper than that. What you’re doing is wrong. It’s close to evil.”
“‘Evil!’” Sophie spat the word out with scorn. “And what is Mr. Hardwick, pray, if he isn’t evil?”
“But that doesn’t make what you’re doing right, Sophie.”Juniper gestured at her deck of cards, the stand-ins for her special Tarot deck. “The cards have been telling us so ever since you started, dear. You know that.”
“The cards,” said Sophie, “are fiddlesticks.”
Juniper sighed deeply and shook her head some more. She glanced at Gabriel, a pleading expression on her sweet face.”I wish you could convince her, Mr. Caine. She won’t listen to me.”
When Sophie turned her head to see what Gabriel though he could accomplish in the face of her determination, she got a shock. He didn’t look scornful, and he didn’t look amused. In fact, he looked as if he felt sorry for her.
She stood abruptly. “This is nonsensical.” She might have to put up with him, and she might have to put up with Juniper’s constant carping, but she’d never allow this man to offer her sympathy. Never. “Just know this, Gabriel Caine. Juniper and I are working women. We have to earn our ways in the world, and in order to do so, we have to perform the family business. Stay out of our way when we’re working. Will you do that?”
Gabriel stood, too. “Yes, ma’am. Wouldn’t dream of interfering.”
“A likely story.”
* * * *
Yet that night, when Sophie and Juniper went downstairs and entered the private parlor Dmitri had hired for them, Sophie noticed Gabriel sitting in a far corner of the lobby, discreetly reading a newspaper. She didn’t much appreciate his way of not interfering and eyed him coldly, but he didn’t even glance up.
Good. Perhaps he’d keep his distance after all. She’d as soon he’d keep a farther distance, but supposed she could understand—a tiny bit—why he might not want to let her out of his sight. Especially if he thought she had methods of tracking Ivo Hardwick that he didn’t possess. Which she did, damn him. She prayed that Gabriel would never discover the existence of Emerald Huffy.
* * * *
Gabriel watched with interest as Sophie and Juniper entered their rented parlor. Sophie, he noticed, had left her wicker basket upstairs, so he assumed Tybalt was sleeping off any gastronomic over-indulgences in her room. She sure did love that ugly dog; whenever Gabriel felt like whapping her upside the head, he remembered Tybalt and his heart melted. It was a definite flaw in his character.
He’d helped Dmitri set the room up for the evening’s occult occurrences, and it looked really quite splendid, draped as it was with black and scarlet hangings, mystical symbols, and Christian emblems. The combination appeared strange to Gabriel, but obviously Juniper believed with her whole heart in all of it. At any rate, the simple hotel parlor now looked mysterious, otherworldly, serene, and inviting, a concoction that impressed him a great deal.
The Madrigal ladies knew how to set an atmosphere. His father had been good at that aspect of his business, too. Gabriel recalled with a certain fondness the crosses and Bibles and white cloths he’d thought of as the “Jesus trappings” of his father’s trade, and which his father had carried with him around the country. His father had been every bit as convinced of his calling as Juniper was convinced of hers. Gabriel had been more like Sophie, which didn’t surprise him a lot when the thought occurred to him.
He shook his head and wondered what propelled people to travel the roads they took in life. What had called his father to become an itinerant revivalist? His old man, George G. Caine, claimed to have honestly felt the call of the Lord to preach and save men’s and women’s souls. Had he been telling the truth? After pondering the question for years, Gabriel guessed he had been.
He’d told a very affecting story about his conversion. He’d told about how, when he’d been a lad on the moors of Scotland, and had been forced to make his way home one night whilst afflicted with drunkenness, he’d asked the good Lord to protect him. He’d made a promise to God that he’d never drink again if the good Lord answered his prayer. And, according to Mr. Caine, the good Lord had done exactly that, and so had he.
Gabriel had loved both his father’s story and the revivalist’s life when he was young. He’d been a handsome lad, and had first discovered the joy of performing in that revival tent. He could still remember the almost orgasmic thrill of holding an audience—his father had called it a congregation—in thrall with his young voice. He’d wowed ‘em in the sticks down South. He grinned now, remembering.
And now here he was, watching over two ladies who were wowing ‘em in the sticks out West. He laid his newspaper down as folks began showing up for prearranged appointments with the Madrigals. Dmitri was minding the gate so that no one would enter who didn’t already have an appointment.
It had taken some sweet-talking on Gabriel’s part to convince Dmitri to let him have
an appointment with Sophie. He could hardly wait to see what she said about his palm. Or his head, if she was an advocate of phrenology. Or his cards. Whatever method she used to discern his future, he was eager to hear it.
The prediction she’d already made about his future smote him, and he frowned. That hadn’t been nice of her, and Gabriel intended to ask her about it tonight.
Dammit, he knew occultism was so much hogwash; he couldn’t understand why that blasted prediction bothered him so much. He had a sneaking hunch it was because Sophie had made it, and his hunch bothered him almost as much as the fact that the prediction bothered him at all. He didn’t want to care what Sophie Madrigal, the most difficult woman he’d ever encountered, thought about him.
The variety of folks who consulted mystics was entertaining to behold. Gabriel watched as sober businessmen—a type that seemed out of place here, in Tucson—respectable women, giggling schoolgirls, and women who were obviously ladies of the night, entered and left the parlor. None of them looked particularly distressed when they departed from their appointments, from which Gabriel gathered that Juniper’s policy of not revealing distressing news still prevailed.
One young man left his appointment beaming. Gabriel experienced a sudden intuitive notion that the boy had sought advice on matters of the heart, and that he’d liked the news revealed by the cards. Or the crystal ball. Or the palm of his hand. He gazed at his own palm and chuckled out loud.
When Juniper had first explained all the lines and lumps to him, he’d been unable to find one of the mounts. He thought it was the Mount of Apollo, but he couldn’t really remember. Whatever it was—or wasn’t—he couldn’t find it, and had wondered what Juniper would make of its lack. He was sort of hoping for something momentous, perhaps that the absence of the Mount of Apollo signified a cursed nature or something.