by Nancy Bush
“Get someone to see to my horse,” Tremaine answered tersely. “Where is she?”
“Upstairs. In her room.”
“What about Marshfield? He’s a doctor. Why hasn’t he been called?”
“She won’t see him. She’s ashamed. That’s why I sent you that message. She knows you.”
Tremaine swore under his breath. His eyes felt scratchy and red from lack of sleep. Twenty hours of straight work and now this. He was so furious with Jace Garrett that he didn’t know if he could stand bringing Garrett’s bastard child into the world.
Tremaine took the bowl of water from Jenny’s hand and resolutely mounted the stairs. It was ominously quiet in the gloomy hallway. Remembering Betsy’s room from his last visit, he walked quickly toward it, balancing the water as he knocked softly on the door. A faint moan sounded.
Tremaine let himself into the darkened room. A lantern sat in the corner, throwing flickering shadows over the sparse furniture. Betsy lay writhing on the bed, her fingers tangled in the damp sheets.
He set the bowl of water on the bureau and placed a dry palm against her moist forehead. “Betsy, it’s Tremaine.”
“Jace,” she murmured brokenly. “I want Jace. Please, please…”
“Jace isn’t here,” he said calmly. “I’m going to help you with your baby.”
“No, you can’t. You mustn’t!” She was crying. “I want a midwife!”
Tremaine didn’t have the heart to tell her that no midwife could help her now. Her contractions had all but stopped and she was bleeding. He’d seen one other case like this before and despite all his efforts, both mother and child had died.
He examined her quickly and discovered the child was breech and nowhere near delivery. He suspected the baby was already dead.
Jenny came in the room, hovering silently, anxiously, by his shoulder. He turned to her. “Get Garrett,” he said grimly.
“He can’t help her. He’s—”
“Get him anyway.”
Jenny read the silent message in Tremaine ominous face. She nodded and left the room. Tremaine reached into his black bag and pulled out a bottle of laudanum. It was precious little to do for her. But he was going to try to birth the baby himself and he needed her relaxed to do it.
“Drink this,” he told Betsy tersely, lifting her head, fairly pushing the liquid past her slack lips. With a silent prayer he set his jaw and concentrated on the task at hand.
¤ ¤ ¤
Jace stood at the bar in the Half Moon Saloon, content to watch the farmers, storekeepers, and mill workers of Rock Springs gamble away their livings. It was nothing to him. He had no desire to gamble and less to conspire with the townsfolk. His only purpose in being at the saloon was to make certain Conrad Templeton wasn’t cheating on the receipts. The Half Moon was a joint venture with Garrett Enterprises, and Jace meant his partner to know who held the reins.
“I’ve shown ya all of ‘em,” Conrad said, wiping the bar, but Jace thought the twitch at the corners of the man’s mouth, more like a spasmodic shudder than an expression of amusement, declared there was far more to learn.
“You showed me the receipts through September,” Jace said mildly. “It’s nearly December.”
“I ain’t got ‘em tallied yet.”
“Tally them, Conrad.” Jace pulled a thin cheroot out of his pocket and sighted down the length of it at the nervous manager. Conrad Templeton paled.
“Yessir,” he muttered.
The door to the saloon opened, swirling the smoke from a dozen cigars, sending a chilling, whipping wind throughout the stuffy room. Protests rose from the gamblers at the tables and the whores who were gathered along the upper balcony.
Jason squinted through the smoke to see Jenny McBride, her hair down, her voluptuous curves wrapped in a dark cloak, her hands clutching it as if she had something to hide. His blood stirred and he inwardly swore. He didn’t really like Jenny. She was trouble in any phase of his life. She wouldn’t sell her land and she’d put all kinds of strange notions in Betsy’s head. Jace wished the both of them would just evaporate.
Spying him, Jenny hustled her way to the bar. Jace inwardly groaned, but was enough of a gentleman to straighten as she came beside him.
“What can I do for you?” Jace asked before she could speak.
“Come to the rooming house. Betsy is — having her baby.”
She spoke low and intensely. Jace was gratified that she hadn’t made this announcement to the room at large; he was infuriated that she should alert him at all. Worse, to demand that he come!
“Jenny, I have no more intention of coming to your rooming house than of letting Conrad Templeton cheat me out of three months’ income.”
“Tremaine Danner’s taking care of her. He told me to bring you.”
Jace froze inside but only for a moment. “You can tell Dr. Danner to go straight to hell.”
Jenny sighed and ran a trembling hand over her face. “She may not make it, Jace.”
“Then there’s nothing I can do, is there?” he answered softly, soberly. He regretted what had happened, but Jace was a man who firmly believed in fate.
“You’re really a bastard,” said Jenny with loathing, and she twisted on her heel and marched out of the saloon.
Jace waited for Conrad Templeton to return, but his concentration had been sorely tested by Jenny’s announcement. So Danner was interfering in his life again. Damn the man. How the hell was he ever going to stand Tremaine being his brother-in-law?
He had to spend several long moments remembering Lexie’s innocently sensual body — and the acres of Danner land — to convince himself the trade-off was worth it.
Conrad Templeton returned, carrying a black receipt book. His color had gone from white to gray. He set the book down on the counter and swiped a hand across the moisture that had formed on his upper lip.
Jace glanced down at the figures with deceptive casualness. He had an agile, intelligent mind and it didn’t take him long to find just where Conrad was skimming. Lifting his eyes to Templeton’s worried ones, he felt another stirring of cold air whisk through the room. “Conrad,” he said silkily, “did you really expect me to overlook these — er — financial discrepancies?”
Conrad’s mouth twitched furiously as his gaze moved from Jace’s eyes to somewhere behind his left ear.
“You didn’t show up.” Tremaine Danner’s icy voice was dangerously quiet.
Jace felt the menace of those few words right down to his toes. He glanced backward and encountered a pair of stony blue eyes and a hard, slashing mouth. Tremaine’s chin just ached to be smashed with Jace’s fist, but Jace was no imprudent fool. If he were to lash out, retribution would be swift and sure. “I was busy,” he said calmly, lighting his nearly forgotten cheroot with the gold-plated lighter.
“Too busy to keep the mother of your child from dying?”
Tremaine spoke in a harsh whisper. Jace sat frozen, the cheroot burning close to his fingertips. “Betsy’s dead?” he asked dazedly.
For an answer Tremaine grabbed him by his lapels. “Not quite,” he muttered. “No thanks to you.”
There was no pretense of civility, Jace realized with growing dread. Tremaine’s eyes snapped with blue fire. There was a compulsive tension in his fingers that spoke clearly of his state of mind. Jace had never been in a more precarious position.
The room fell silent behind them. In a detached part of his mind, Jace raged furiously that no one — not one individual — saw fit to help him while this driven maniac faced him down.
“Look, Danner,” he began reasonably, but Tremaine’s hand tightened, and he hauled Jace off his stool in one smooth, deadly motion. The fury in his eyes prompted the gamblers to collectively make silent bets on the outcome of the brewing fight — Tremaine Danner was heavily favored.
“I’d like to kill you with my bare hands,” Tremaine snarled. “You’re the lowest form of coward I’ve ever met, and I’ll be damned if I let Lexie marry y
ou.”
Jace could have pointed out that that was Lexie’s choice, not his, but instead said merely, “What about your Hippocratic oath, doctor? I don’t think murder would be—”
“Shut up,” Tremaine said softly.
Jace’s dignity took a terrible beating as the eminent Dr. Danner dragged him by his expensive wool suit out into the street. He was flung into the frozen mud outside the saloon, which saved his clothes but scraped his cheek. Jace had never been so angered or humiliated. He sprang to his feet, intent on taking Tremaine down a notch or two and damn the consequences.
To his surprise Danner simply leaned against the saloon’s rail, a wry smile on his lips. “You fit in well down there in the street, Jason. Part of the muck and slime.”
Jace’s eyes gleamed with treachery. “You just earned yourself an enemy, Danner. One you’re going to be sorry you made.”
“We were never anything but enemies.”
“Were going to be brothers-in-law,” he said through his teeth. Tremaine tensed involuntarily and Jace, who’d always suspected Lexie was his soft spot, relished this small triumph. “I’m going to marry Lexie regardless of what you say or do. Eliza is for it and so is Lexie. Seems Lexie wants me to make an honest woman out of her,” Jace lied with ease. “The last time I saw Lexie she was on her knees, begging me to marry her.” Surprised emotion crossed Tremaine Danner’s face, and Jace added softly, “You know, I like it when she begs.”
Tremaine was on him in a flash and Jace suffered a numbing mist of red pain as he lay at the mercy of Danner’s fists. He tried to fight back but he was no match for Tremaine’s superior strength and endurance. Danner had always been tough and wild; Jace had wisely given him a wide berth. But he’d goaded him tonight and while he flailed around, hoping to provide some injury, he wondered if Tremaine might not actually kill him.
Then suddenly Tremaine stopped, his eyes glittering with such inhuman fury that Jace’s sense of triumph increased. Danner’s weakness over Lexie was greater than he’d thought! Laughing inside, Jace wiped blood from his mouth with the back of hand.
“Get up,” Tremaine snarled, yanking Jace to his feet, trying to stand him on rubbery legs. Dimly, Jace became aware of the group of watchers hovering on the plankwood sidewalk outside the saloon.
“Whad’re ya gonna do now?” Jace asked through thickened lips.
Moments later he was sorry he’d asked, when Tremaine dragged him like a man possessed toward the rushing plummet of Fool’s Falls. Amidst catcalls and laughter he was shoved under the thundering torrent, battered and tossed, his breath pounded from his lungs. When he finally crawled limply to the side of the pool, spitting and coughing, he saw Danner standing at the edge of Silver Stream like the dreaded demon he was.
Jace hated Tremaine Danner with a new and violent passion. Hated him. Swearing, stuttering, shivering, he glared at Tremaine’s now impassive face. He was going to make the bastard pay. Pay terribly. He thought of Lexie. I’ve got you, Danner, he crowed to himself triumphantly.
It was time to ask Joseph Danner for Lexie’s hand in marriage.
¤ ¤ ¤
“J’ai, tu as, il a, elle a…” Lexie slammed the book shut and closed her eyes, committing to memory the conjugation of the French verb “to have.”
“If you go over that one more time I shall have an attack of the vapors and faint dead away at your feet,” Ella intoned dramatically. She lounged, as ever, on the bed in only her camisole and drawers.
Lexie smiled wryly. “Why do we have to learn French? I’ve never met anyone who speaks it, and I’m certainly not going to use it on the farm.”
“It’s culture, my dear,” Ella said in an excellent imitation of Miss Everly’s voice. “Women of this area are abysmally lacking in culture. Professor DuLac is knowledgeable in so many areas. Learn from him. Work with him.”
Professor DuLac, the only male instructor at Miss Everly’s School, was the most self-righteous stuffed shirt Lexie had ever encountered. “I have learned,” Lexie remarked. “In fact, yesterday I looked up how to swear in French as well as English.”
“Really?” Ella was intrigued. “How?”
“Sacre bleu,” Lexie said, pleased. “It was written on the inside leaf of my book and I asked Professor DuLac what it meant. Direct translation is ‘sacred blue,’ but apparently it’s not the kind of comment a lady would make. Professor DuLac turned purple, right to the crown of his bald head, and then confiscated my book.” She held up her leather bound volume. “This is a new one.”
Ella laughed. “Oh, I can’t wait to try it out! DuLac is such a pompous ass. Thank the Lord I finally have a reason to enjoy his class!”
“Only a few more classes and we get to go home for winter break,” said Lexie with a happy sigh, tossing her French book on her bed.
“Who cares about home? The Winter Ball is next Friday.” Ella reached over and snatched up Lexie’s book, balancing it on her head as she walked carefully from one end of the room to the other.
Lexie glanced out the window to the cold, gray day beyond. “Mmmmm, that’s right,” she said distractedly.
The book slid off Ella’s head and crashed to the floor with a thump. “Has Jace said he’ll come yet?”
“He’s too busy,” Lexie answered lightly. She didn’t want Ella to know she hadn’t asked him.
“What about your brother?”
“Brother?” Lexie repeated stupidly.
“The blond one? Or are they all blond? He’s certainly a handsome devil.”
Lexie was relieved Ella meant Harrison, yet why she should have even considered it might be Tremaine was ridiculous, since Tremaine had never shown up at the school while the students had been there. “You must mean Harrison.”
“Are all your brothers as handsome as he is?”
Lexie grinned. “I’m afraid so.”
“Good Lord.” Ella pretended to faint across her bed. “It’s not fair to have such a family. How do you ever find a man to compare?”
Lexie pulled the green taffeta gown with the raised pattern from her closet and held it in front of her. The neckline dipped daringly low. “It’s a problem,” she admitted, thinking of Tremaine.
“You’re not going alone, are you? Good Lord, Lexie, this is our one chance to do the asking!” Ella struggled to a sitting position.
Lexie had been thinking of skipping the Winter Ball altogether. She didn’t know any of the young men who came to the school to meet a Miss Everly girl. She’d made a point of steering clear of them. But now she considered Ella’s suggestion. “I could ask Harrison, I suppose. Although I don’t know how much of a dancer he is.”
Glancing at Ella, Lexie was surprised by the spasm of tension in her friend’s face. “Ella! What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” She drew a long breath and lay back on the bed. “I’ve just had these pains in my stomach.”
“In your stomach? Where?” Lexie was beside her in an instant.
“All over,” Ella admitted. “Wait, now. It’s passing. I think it’s something I ate.”
Lexie, who knew nothing of diagnostic medicine but had a keen instinctual understanding all the same, could tell by Ella’s pallor and reaction that this was something far more serious. “Maybe we should tell Miss Everly and have her call a doctor.”
“No.” Ella shook her head stubbornly. Her eyes fluttered closed and she sighed. “She might keep me home from the Winter Ball and it’s the only worthwhile event this school sponsors. I couldn’t bear living through this year without one taste of freedom and fun.”
“But if you’re sick…”
“I’m not that sick.” The faintest glimmer of a smile curved her lips. “Nobody’s that sick.”
Lexie wasn’t convinced. She sat on the edge of the bed beside her friend. “When the horses have stomach ailments, they have to be watched carefully. It could turn into something serious and sometimes, if it isn’t treated early on, they have to be put down.”
Ella laug
hed shakily. “Good Lord, Lexie. Are you suggesting I’m a horse?”
“Well, you’re acting as thick-headed as one.” Lexie smiled. If Ella could laugh, then her condition might not be as serious as Lexie had first imagined.
“If I have to, I’ll crawl to that Winter Ball. How often does a ‘lady’ get to invite a man out? This is the one and only time it’ll be proper.”
“All right, all right.” Lexie tucked the covers over Ella’s shoulders. “I won’t breathe a word to anyone. We can always dance together,” she added with a grin, which drew a sick moan from Ella.
¤ ¤ ¤
For the next several days Lexie abided by her promise to keep Ella’s stomach ailment a secret. But two nights before the Winter Ball, Lexie was awakened in the dead of night by soft whimpers of misery emanating from the other bed.
“Ella?” Lexie asked, groping in the dark for the lantern. Miss Everly’s School for Young Ladies had been built before the advent of gaslights, and kerosene lanterns were still used for illumination.
The oak floor was frigidly cold beneath Lexie’s bare feet. Another moan sounded from the bed. Lexie lit the lantern with cold-numbed fingers and was alarmed to see her friend doubled over, writhing, and retching into the chamberpot beside her bed.
“Ella!” she cried.
“Help,” she choked out. “Help.” Her face was a torment of pain.
Lexie didn’t wait. She threw on her clothes, pulling on the cherished Turkish split skirt and a cotton shirtwaist. She tossed a cloak over her shoulders and said, “I’ll call Miss Everly. I’m getting a doctor.”
She buttoned her shoes, hopping on one foot down the hallway. Pounding on Miss Everly’s door, she nearly awakened the entire floor before she remembered Mess Everly was spending the night at her sister’s home, helping care for her children while the poor woman gave birth to her eleventh child.
“What’s wrong with you?” Celeste Monteith complained, poking her head out of her room. Blond hair tumbled fetchingly over her shoulder, and were it not for the perpetual sneer on her porcelain face she would be a very beautiful girl indeed. “You could wake the dead.”