Bluebonnet Belle

by Lori Copeland

  The evening ended on a dour note. Decorations were stripped and packed into a carriage, to be transported back to Dallas. Expensive chocolates were put back in boxes and cases to be used at a later time.

  All in all, the party was a flop.

  “April, could you send the boys more of the elixir? And more pamphlets? They’re so busy they don’t have time to come get them.”

  “Of course, Mrs. Pinkham. I’ll go right away.”

  “If you don’t mind. I’ll have Charlie put the boxes in your carriage.”

  Within the hour Lydia’s son Charlie had loaded the vehicle, and April, making up yet another excuse to Riley why she would be gone for the day, was on her way to Burgess to help them with the new outpost. The sun was shining through the bare branches of maple trees. Her mind traveled back to the DuBois party the night before. It had been a grand affair, and she felt sorry for Francesca that people hadn’t responded to her efforts.

  “She obviously wanted to prove something to us,” Beulah had speculated as they’d got their coats to leave.

  “Such as?”

  “That she’s better than we are.”

  “I don’t think so. I think she’s only trying to fit in, and the town isn’t helping any.”

  “You’re too nice. She was playing queen to the peasants, and when we didn’t drop to kiss her feet she got in a snit. I feel sorry for Dr. Fuller. He was embarrassed.”

  “He was…uncomfortable,” April had to admit.

  The Fuller–DuBois alliance was puzzling. Gray and Francesca didn’t fit together. They were oil and water, sugar and salt, vinegar and sarsaparilla. They just didn’t match. Some would say the same of her and Henry. Even she was having second thoughts at times. Henry didn’t seem eager to commit himself to a wedding date, and she wasn’t so sure she was ready, either. He was beginning to look like the scoundrel others had warned her about.

  April delivered the supplies to Dan and Will at their hotel. The building’s interior was sad, with dull, faded paper, the hallway poorly lighted. She was disappointed she’d missed Henry, yet strangely relieved. Will said he was out making contacts.

  The encounter with Grace refused to leave her. At the oddest times April resented Henry, feeling as if he had betrayed her, when in fact she didn’t know that. One day she was going to muster enough courage to come right out and confront him with Grace’s strange accusation—let him assure her it was laughable. Perhaps then she could regain her former trust and affection for him.

  “Do you need to get back right away?” Will asked.

  “No, just as long as I return before dark. Why?”

  “Could you take a few of these bottles to the Brown Pharmacy?”

  Agreeing to make the delivery, April left the hotel shortly before noon. For the next hour, she window-shopped. Finally purchasing new gloves and a soft cotton camisole, she left the store feeling good. There was nothing like a shopping trip to take a girl’s mind off men.

  When she realized it was noon, she went inside the Green Palm to have lunch. As she was being seated, it occurred to her that she was near Clara’s, the café where she had encountered Grace Pruitt three weeks earlier.

  Glancing around the room, she was relieved to see she hadn’t been followed.

  This is silly. The woman made a mistake. Somewhere in the area there was a conniving man by the name of Henry who was toying with two women’s affections. That man was not her Henry. Her Henry Trampas Long was at this moment walking the streets, intent on building a secure future for her.

  No sooner had the thought occurred to her than she sensed someone approaching her table. With a feeling of dread, she looked up, to see Grace Pruitt coming toward her with a full head of steam.

  “You!” the woman practically shouted.

  Closing her eyes, April sank back in her chair. This was too much. What was it with her? Did she lurk around Burgess’s eating establishments, waiting to see April pull into town? How did Grace know when she conducted business here? Uncanny luck?

  “Please,” April murmured, praying she wouldn’t make a scene. Dressed the way the girl was, and with Emogene’s Pleasure Palace a block down the street, it didn’t take a clairvoyant to guess her occupation. “You have me confused with someone else. Would you please just move on?”

  April opened the large menu to hide behind as Grace stopped at her table, pointing a bejeweled finger at her. “You conniving hussy!”

  All sounds in the room ceased, and everyone turned to look in their direction.

  “Will you please lower your voice—”

  “No! I told you to leave Henry alone, but you didn’t listen. You continue to see him—and don’t try to tell me you haven’t because I have contacts—reliable contacts—who tell me different.”

  April stood up and reached for her cloak. She would not sit here and be subject to such humiliation. The young woman was clearly deranged.

  “No, you don’t, sister!”

  Before April realized what was coming, Grace reached out and grabbed a handful of her hair.

  Unable to move, April ordered through clenched teeth, “Let go of my hair!” Trying to hold on to her cloak and bag, she reached for Grace’s arm to break her hold.

  “Henry is mine!” Grace yanked her hair hard, then whacked her, bringing tears to her eyes and knocking the bag to the floor, spilling brown bottles of Pinkham compound.

  “You have obviously made a mistake! My Henry is Henry Trampas Long!” April grunted, trying to jerk free.

  Grace tightened her grip, dislodging April’s hat. It fell to the floor, pulling loose strands of hair with it.

  “Henry Trampas Long is my Henry!” Grace muttered through clenched teeth. “And I want you to keep your lily-white hands off him!”

  Tears spurted in April’s eyes, and she saw stars as Grace continued to pull her hair out by the roots.

  “Ladies! Ladies!” the proprietor shouted. His handlebar mustache stood straight out as he waded in to separate the two.

  “She’s no lady!” Grace gasped, pinning April to the floor in a bruising headlock.

  “Please…” the man begged, trying to pry them apart.

  “Someone call a constable,” April choked out, trying to break her assailant’s painful hold.

  “Ladies, I insist you stop this!”

  A couple of men on the sidelines stepped in to help.

  Shaking them off, Grace stood like a spitting panther, glaring at April, who was trying to pick herself off the floor.

  “That woman is seeing my fiancé!”

  “I am not! I don’t know who your fiancé is!”

  “Liar!”

  “Idiot!”

  Grandpa would die if he could see her now, but April wasn’t about to let this…this beast scratch her eyes out!

  Straightening, Grace struck her across the cheek with a white glove.

  April glared back at her.

  “I challenge you to a duel.”

  “A what?”

  “A duel.”

  The men in the crowd shrank back with muffled oohs.

  “A what?” April repeated, certain she’d misunderstood. Women didn’t fight duels. Men did.

  “You heard me right. A duel. Saturday. Miller’s Glen. Sunrise.”

  Grace’s words refused to register. A duel? April stood paralyzed in shock while everyone around her babbled with a mixture of consternation and humor.

  Two women, dueling!

  Who’d ever heard of such a thing?

  Someone took April by the arm as the constable arrived. Grace lunged again, making another attempt to get at her.

  “Stop it! Right now!” the officer insisted.

  Order was quickly restored. Overturned tables were set back in place as a couple of stout men led a still-spitting Grace out the front door. “Miller’s Glen, Saturday morning! You’d better be there or I’ll come after you!”

  “Ha,” April muttered, trying to pin mussed strands of hair back into place. “You don
’t know where I live.”

  “I heard that! You live in Dignity!”

  April hated Henry at that moment. Hated him with every fiber of her being. Wanted to tear his limbs off piece by agonizing piece. The awful truth came tumbling down on her. Henry had deceived her. Grace’s Henry was her Henry. The same Henry Rotten Trampas Long who’d made her believe there was no other woman in the world but her.

  With an apologetic glance at the café owner, the constable marched Grace out the front door. April could see him escort the woman back down the street to Emogene’s Pleasure Palace.

  “Are you all right, miss?”

  Other than a few missing hairs and shattered composure, April wasn’t hurt.

  First for Burgess. Two Women to Duel Over the Affections of a Lydia Pinkham Pitchman.

  April clipped the article out of the newspaper, then quickly refolded the paper and laid it beside Riley’s breakfast plate. There was no way she could prevent him from knowing about the duel, but she hoped to buy time—time to wring Henry’s neck. Oh, she’d already let him have it, but according to Henry he was a “victim of circumstances.” Grace had pursued him mercilessly even though he’d thwarted her advances.

  April had spun on her heel and walked off. She wasn’t that big of a fool. Now she had to do everything possible to ward off a possible heart attack should her grandpa discover what she was about to do. Grace Pruitt was mentally unhinged. If she challenged April to a duel, April had best be prepared to fight. But she couldn’t fight—publicly brawl like a common hooligan. She had to bide her time until this thing cooled down—and make sure Grandpa didn’t hear a word about it. He’d not only be furious with her for seeing Henry, he’d be livid at her for causing such a scandal. And Beulah couldn’t know, either. This was April’s problem.

  Riley entered the dining room, yawning. Rays of mellow sunshine dappled the freshly polished floor. Scents of lemon oil and baking bread permeated the room as he took his seat at the head of the table.

  Snapping open the paper, he started reading, then frowned.

  April busied herself sprinkling brown sugar on her bowl of steaming oatmeal, careful not to look up.

  “Who’s been tampering with my newspaper?”

  Feigning innocence, she murmured, “What’s wrong?”

  Shuffling the pages, Riley impatiently searched through the rest of the paper. “Somebody’s cut a hole in the front page!”

  “No!” April was on her feet, peering over his shoulder indignantly. “Who would do such a thing?”

  “I don’t know, but when I find out I’ll give them a piece of my mind! Datha!”

  The girl instantly appeared in the doorway. “Yes, sir?”

  “What happened to the front page of my newspaper?”

  She frowned. “It’s in your hand, sir.”

  “Someone’s cut a hole in it!”

  “Cut a hole?” Datha hurried around the table, her dark eyes wide with concern. “Why, sir, I can’t imagine how that happened.”

  “Did Davy bring it to the door as usual?”

  “As usual, Mr. Ogden. Said he picked it up shortly after it was delivered to the emporium.”

  “Kids!” Snapping the paper open, Riley grumbled under his breath as he tried to read around the gaping hole. “You tell Davy to be more careful in the future.”

  “Yes, sir, I’ll do that.”

  Datha hurried back to the kitchen as April dropped back into her chair. One crisis averted.

  There weren’t many folks in Dignity who subscribed to the Burgess periodical. She only hoped Grandpa would be satisfied he hadn’t missed anything important, and drop the subject.

  April spent the rest of the day in fear that another subscriber had seen the article about her and Grace and would tell Riley.

  Once her head cleared, she had sent a note to Grace in an attempt to settle their dispute peacefully.

  By the time she had gotten back to Dignity, she was feeling rational again. She’d hoped the duel would be canceled once they both calmed down, but the note she received Monday from Grace informed her it was still scheduled for Saturday at sunrise.

  There was going to be a duel. If April didn’t appear at the appointed hour, Grace would come here to Dignity to confront her.

  The embarrassment would kill Riley. How could April face the people she’d known all her life if Grace arrived in Dignity and announced to the town that she was challenging April to a duel, over a man?

  Over Henry Long?

  She had lain awake nights, worrying that Riley would find out what she was doing. The fact that she’d been involved in a public row in a Burgess restaurant would put him in a dither, and the thought of a duel…well, it was unthinkable.

  Henry. She’d broken off their relationship immediately.

  An ache squeezed her heart when she thought of his betrayal. How could she have fallen so deeply for a man without morals? Grandpa had warned her about Henry’s philandering ways, but she hadn’t listened. Now look where she was.

  After considerable thought, she knew the man she wanted to have help her out.

  Gray Fuller.

  Gray would not want to get involved in the sticky situation, but he was the only man she knew who had a stake in the outcome. As Riley’s physician he wouldn’t want to see her grandfather shaken. She had no one else to confide in.

  A duel? She was heartsick at the thought. Father, forgive me. I never meant to get involved in such a disgraceful thing. I can’t fight a duel. It would be wrong, nothing for a child of Yours to take part in, but I don’t know how to get out of it.

  She couldn’t let Grace come to Dignity, and she most certainly couldn’t fire at someone made in the likeness of God, either. What was she going to do?

  Throwing a cloak around her shoulders, April called to Datha that she was going out, and started walking toward the town square.

  Reaching Gray’s office door, she hesitated, then, squaring her shoulders, went in.

  The waiting room was empty, and for a moment she feared he might be away on a call, or upstairs in his living quarters.

  Hoping that he was working and simply hadn’t heard the bell over the waiting room door, she moved quickly to his private office and rapped softly.

  “Come in.”

  She hesitated, then turned the handle.

  He was sitting behind a desk littered with papers and open ledgers. His eyes became guarded when he saw her. “Miss Truitt.”

  “I need to speak to you.”

  “Do you come in peace or war?” he asked dryly, returning to his paperwork.

  He had every right to be leery of her, but not for the usual reason. She needed his help far more than she needed to argue the pros and cons of medicine.

  Now that she was here, her confidence plummeted. Standing in Grandpa’s library, rationalizing that Gray would help her, was a far cry from actually standing in front of him asking for his help.

  Getting to his feet, the doctor stepped around her to the filing cabinet. “What brings you here, Miss Truitt?”

  She took a deep breath and began. “I’m in trouble.”

  His expression didn’t change. “What kind of trouble?”

  She felt a blush warm her cheeks. “Really big trouble.”

  Closing the file drawer, he smiled distantly. “Do I need to examine you?”

  April’s blush deepened, and she realized she shouldn’t have come. It was just too embarrassing. She’d insulted his profession, accused him of being thoughtless, uncaring and a pretentious quack. Now she was here wanting his help.

  She’d bungled things with Gray from their first meeting. Why on earth would he be willing to help her now?

  “I shouldn’t have come,” she said, turning away. This was insane. She had no right to involve him in her problems. If she’d been foolish enough to believe in Henry, then she had to suffer the consequences.

  Muttering under his breath, Gray reached out and caught her hand. “I’m assuming this isn’t a phy
sical problem. Are you here to talk about a personal problem?”

  “It’s just that…”

  Motioning toward the chair, he said softly, “Sit down, April. Tell me what you came here for.”

  He flashed her a smile, and she obediently sank into the chair. Walking around the desk, he sat down in turn, leaning back and eyeing her speculatively. “What’s troubling you?”

  Swallowing, April studied her hands as she twisted the strings of her purse.

  “Come now. April Truitt speechless?” He lifted his eyes, silently mouthing a grateful thank-you.

  “I’ve been challenged to a duel Saturday morning. Henry’s been seeing another woman in Burgess, and she’s challenged me to a duel.”

  Gray simply stared at her. At least she knew she had his complete attention for once.

  When he continued to stare, she shifted in her seat uneasily. “Don’t look at me that way. I know it’s insane, but it’s true, and I need your help to stop this.”

  The legs of his chair hit the floor with a loud smack. “You cannot be serious.”

  “I assure you, I am. Quite serious.” Deadly serious. She twisted her purse strings again. “The problem is, I don’t know…exactly…what all this means.”

  Gray exploded, jumping to his feet to pace. “What have you done now?”

  “I’m not sure. It certainly wasn’t something I did intentionally. This…this Grace person accosted me while I was having lunch in Burgess two days ago. There I am, enjoying my treat, having passed out Lydia’s pamphlets and delivered Pinkham’s compound, and out of the blue, Grace marches over to me and challenges me to a duel.”

  Gray stood in the middle of the room running a hand through his hair.

  April averted her eyes, willing to give him time to adjust. Clearly, the ramifications hadn’t completely sunk in yet.

  “You can’t fight a duel—I’ve never heard of two women fighting a duel!”

  He was blustering, but blustering was good. Once a man blustered his system thoroughly clean, he thought more clearly.

  “You have now,” she said.

  Striding back and forth, he mumbled to himself. She could tell he was thinking. Thinking was good.

  “Who is this woman in Burgess?”