Christine squared her shoulders, as though to separate herself from the other two in the photograph. They had the academy in common, perhaps, but beyond that—well, she was in no mood to be like those women who’d hidden Tucker’s letters.
“If you close yourself off to Maman, she will not open to you either, Christine,” Tucker was saying. “When we are young, we believe older people—our parents, our teachers—they should be the ones to reach out with their wisdom. And their love.”
The way he was so thoughtfully gazing at their portrait, she almost rolled her eyes. Had he intentionally put these pictures in order, to illustrate the points of this little lecture?
“But they won’t always love us, just because we believe they should,” she snapped.
He smiled at her then, so profoundly handsome that she wished he’d stop preaching and kiss her again.
But no. He reached for another print. “You must offer the first olive branch, ma belle. A gift of your good intentions.”
As though that will happen any time soon! As though Veronique Trudeau would accept anything I’d give her—especially after eavesdropping on this conversation with those powers she has.
But all doubts were forgotten when Lily appeared in the next print, utterly lovely as she threw those little arms around Christine’s neck and they touched noses.
Christine held her breath, her throat tight with wanting to cry again. She could feel the wiggling solidity of Lily’s warmth, could bask in the sunshine of that little girl’s smile and delight in the crisp pink gingham that always smelled of a summer’s day.
“Kwis-teen,” she murmured in a childlike voice. “Kwazy Kwis-teen.”
Tucker’s tender expression told her he understood how much she missed that bright-eyed child.
“You have always needed her this way, oui?”
“Oui,” she replied without thinking. “We found her in a big basket on Mercy’s porch last Easter after we’d baptized Solace. I reached for her—she reached for me—”
Christine blinked, not caring that a tear slithered down her cheek. “I loved her that fast. It was like she’d been placed there for me to find.”
“It is the best way to fall in love, non?” he murmured. “No questions, no doubts. No looking back. If we could only feel so safe with those we don’t understand . . . if only someday, you could embrace Maman this way—because she needs love, too, ma joie.”
She could not imagine hugging Veronique Trudeau. Not only because the witchy little woman would never allow her so close, but because, well . . . she was odd. And she smelled bad.
“Your mother is a seer,” she pointed out. “She’ll know I’m trying to sweet-talk her.”
Tucker chuckled, a low sound that danced with delight.
“I am a seer, as well—through my camera lens. Sometimes I see people as they are, sometimes as they would like to be,” he continued. “I capture the yearning on their faces . . . their secret joys. The goodness inside them.”
He flipped to the next print in his box. “When you look at this likeness, of Michael and Mercy, it is goodness you see, non? Even if you had never met them, you would trust them. These people, you want to know them.”
How could he say that after Michael Malloy had hauled her away from Atchison three years ago and Mercy had hidden his letters? While she admired Tucker for seeing the best in people, Christine had a hard time reconciling herself to the way this pair had betrayed her. Even though their letters had made her cry last night.
But yes, it was a stunning picture of a couple so much in love, she had to look away.
“Ah, you hesitate, ma belle. It is clear to me how much the Malloys love you and want the best for you, but you cannot see it.”
A smile crept across his face as he gazed at Mike and Mercy, who smiled beneath those entwined Ms carved in the porch pillar.
“We should not forget, chérie—you might not be with me now, if you got my letters when I wrote them,” he said. “You might have quit school if you’d read those clippings about your mother back then. Or—if you’d followed her trail from Atchison—your younger heart might’ve been broken beyond repair. Who can say?”
Should she blurt out about her hopes and dreams being shattered—or, more accurately, stuffed into a drawer—those three lonely years she hadn’t heard from him? If only he didn’t sound like an older, more experienced man trying to teach her something.
“It was your dusty little face that spoke to me when we met,” he went on softly. “I knew—just like Maman—that you were not sixteen. That you had told other stories to get so far across Kansas alone. But you were doing it because you loved your mama.”
Tucker brought the next portrait to the top of his box, holding her gaze. “You wanted her back, of course. You wanted her to be safe from—”
“I wanted answers!” she said harshly. “She left Billy and me behind without a backward glance.”
“You wanted to go home, to know your mother’s love again,” he continued, ignoring her discomfort. “Love, it is what we cannot live without, Christine. We shrivel like flowers that get no rain. Which is why I knew I had to see you again someday. And here you are, ready to be my queen.”
The magician beside her had timed this little show so perfectly, she wondered whether Tucker Trudeau was as potent a sorcerer as his mother. The photograph before them, where her plot to run off with this man had lowered her eyelids and given a feline lift to her lips, looked as stunning as the others. If she said so herself.
Tucker laughed softly at her transformation. Young ladies loved to study themselves, and this portrait had inspired the reaction he’d hoped for. With her green eyes alight and a flush returning to her cheeks, Christine Bristol was once again the confident young woman he’d fallen in love with—the girl who would stop at nothing to have her way.
“What do you see when you look at this likeness?” he whispered. While he had captured her at the best possible moment, Christine herself was the work of art. He was merely the recorder.
She chuckled, smug again. “I see a woman who has set aside girlish games to play for keeps,” she answered. “Everyone was dead set against me leaving with you, and when you took this, I was figuring out a way to defy them. And you, if I had to.”
Ah, it was that defiance that defined her. Tucker savored her response. She had no idea how much like her mother she truly was.
And perhaps that was the cornerstone he had to build a very convincing case on, if Christine was to come through this next leg of their journey with her emotions intact.
Tucker gazed at her with all the love in his heart—and all the Cajun flirtation that would keep her smiling, willing to follow his lead.
“It is that single-mindedness I have always admired,” he began, slipping his hand around hers. “It is the will to not only survive, but to triumph against all odds. It shines on your pretty face again, chérie, and I’m happy to see it.”
Her expression softened into a demure loveliness that teased at his better intentions. Tucker allowed himself one soft, thorough kiss . . . waiting until he felt the breath of her surrender before he parted her lips for his tongue, to deepen the contact . . . the commitment.
She sighed languidly when he let her go. He was gazing at her with a playfulness his black hair and beard accented so brazenly: the look of a man who saw what he wanted and intended to have it.
“What are you up to, Tucker?” she asked.
He feigned surprise—but only because she’d nailed him more quickly than he anticipated. He could lead her on no longer. While Christine was feeling strong again, he had to present his plan.
“While I don’t think Sheriff Carson always told the whole story—”
“He didn’t. He was nice to me because he wanted information,” she stated. Then her brow puckered. “I’m not sure what I might’ve revealed when I told him about Mama, but I felt like a prize he’d won at the fair when he paraded me back to Mrs. Padgett’s.”
“Ah, oui. So
proud of proving those ladies wrong so he could be right.” Tucker shifted in the seat to face her more fully. “Christine, ma belle, he told me your mama . . . your mama, she has spent some time in Denver.”
The rise of her eyebrows told him to go on before she got skittish.
“It was awhile back, oui, but—but he heard she was conducting séances there. Doing quite well at it.”
The bottom dropped out of her stomach. “Mama? A medium?”
He shrugged, hoping she wouldn’t misinterpret his idea. “We can go there, if you like. Ask around town—”
“Of course we will!”
“—to see if she is possibly still there,” he finished in a rush. “We must be so very careful, you understand. The last time she learned you were looking for her—”
“In Atchison. Right after Michael Malloy hauled me back to Mercy’s.”
“—she disappeared.”
Christine’s mouth clapped shut.
“Like the mist before the morning sun,” she finished sadly, knowing exactly how exasperated those ladies in North Platte had felt when Mama slipped through their fingers.
She glanced behind them, to where Veronique appeared to be sleeping again. Only the flicker of an eyelid gave her away.
“Can your mother—will your mother—tell us if Mama and Wyndham are still there?” she whispered. “Considering what I witnessed when she was with the Gates girl, it seems a simple enough . . . vision for her.”
Tucker closed his eyes, wishing this whole thing were simpler. “She could, oui. And perhaps, if she realizes the advantages of trapping your mama once and for all—”
He smiled apologetically. “Désolé, cherie. I make it sound as if your mama is an animal.”
“A fox. A sly cat. Obviously a chameleon, too.”
Christine stared at the large hand enveloping hers in its warmth, trying to harness her racing thoughts. What if Mama were in Denver? These days, mediums were considered quite respectable, and they often catered to an elite clientele if they were accurate . . . or just very astute about duping those who sat around their table.
What if they could find out where Mama plied her current trade? How difficult would it be to—
“We’re going to find her, Tucker. We’re going to sit at her séance table and play her own phony game to catch her.”
Tucker cleared his throat. He’d thought of this already—just as he’d considered a dozen ways Virgilia Bristol might viciously lash out and hurt her daughter again.
“Christine, ma belle,” he murmured. “She will recognize you instantly. And we have to figure that Wyndham, he’s in on this—probably pulling her strings. Certainly the purse strings.”
She widened her eyes at him. “Have you never heard of disguises, dear man?”
“Et moi? How will we disguise me?” he challenged. “The moment I speak, your mama will recall the photographer from Atchison—and be suspicious because he has come to her.”
Tucker leaned closer to drive home his point. This challenge—the chance that they might actually find her mother—was shining like a beacon in Christine’s green eyes. In her innocence, she had no idea of the risks they’d be taking.
“It is not so simple, sitting at her table, ma petite,” he insisted softly. “What if she really has the power? What if she truly summons spirits, like Maman?”
She considered this, but then shook her head. “Mama was fascinated by séances before Daddy got shot—would’ve gone to one had anyone she knew been a medium. But actually contacting Daddy after he was gone?”
Christine smiled with the irony of it. “She would’ve fainted dead away, had he—or anyone else—spoken to her from the Other Side. She would’ve had nightmares for weeks, and seen spirits behind every odd little thing that happened.”
Her fingers drummed the arm of the seat as she gazed into space. She could do this—there had to be a way. The mysterious nature of séances, with their dim rooms and tilting tables and spectral voices from the Beyond, could play perfectly into this plan if she found out how Mama was working her hocus-pocus. She was certain her mother had parlayed her crafty imagination into becoming a medium—a socially acceptable occupation that would hide her connivery while using it to best advantage. It was only a matter of—
Turning in her seat, Christine looked at Veronique again. This time the old crone was staring back at her, as though telling her she’d be a fool to try such a charade, much less believe she’d succeed at it.
What more incentive did she need? If that witch in the mismatched clothes thought she’d fail at this venture, then she absolutely had to do it. Even if Tucker and his mother refused to go with her, she would haunt Mama—and she would demand the answers that had driven this mission for the past three years.
“And we must consider this, chérie,” Tucker’s low voice cut into her thoughts. “Even if we cleverly disguise our looks—even if I pretend to be mute—how will your emotions not give you away? One look at your mother and you won’t be able to keep quiet. You’ll either shake the explanations out of her, or you’ll . . . cry like a little girl who has desperately missed her mama.”
Christine nearly laughed out loud, but Tucker’s eyes stopped her. Luminous aquamarine they were, but their Cajun playfulness had been replaced by a sorrow so profound it took her breath away. It was as though he could see into the future—as his mother supposedly did—and had no words to express the awful consequences of meeting up with Mama.
She looked away. For several moments, there was only the steady rocking of the train and the low, repetitive song of its wheels along the track. The passengers around them disappeared, and she could think of only Tucker, herself, and Mama sitting at a séance table.
“Then what am I to do? How can I not go to her?”
Tucker had no answer. He held her small, damp hand between his, aware of how delicate she was . . . fragile, in ways she didn’t realize. Christine Bristol had been entrusted to his care by God—regardless of how Maman had argued against him seeing her again.
“Think about it. Pray about it,” he replied, kissing her temple. “I’m going back to talk with Maman.”
Chapter Nineteen
When the train jerked to a stop, Christine awoke with a gasp. Had she dozed for an hour or only moments? She recalled Tucker going back to talk with his mother—and saying they’d head to Denver now, to find Mama.
Great clouds of white steam drifted up past her window, obscuring her view. Railway agents began wrestling trunks onto the platform. This station appeared larger and more impressive than most of the ones she’d seen dotting the Nebraska plains, yet it still had a rough-and-tumble frontier newness about it. Denver was not at all the impressive city she’d anticipated.
Tucker slid into the seat beside her, smiling at the sleep-glazed look on her face. “You have napped, ma belle? I doubt we’ll get much rest on the road into Denver—”
“We’re not there yet?”
“Non, non, non! This is Cheyenne. Now we must drive the wagon south, along the stagecoach road.”
Christine scowled again, cranky from being awakened so suddenly. “You can’t tell me a major city like Denver isn’t on the Union Pacific’s—”
“Oh, the city fathers and railroad officials, they wanted that. But General Dodge, when he scouted, decided that route was too rugged—too many mountains—to meet his time limit,” Tucker explained patiently. Then he shrugged into his coat. “I must see about unloading the wagon and Sol. You and Maman can stay here where it’s warm until I—”
“But what if the train starts up again? What if—”
Two large hands grasped her arms and Christine lost herself in the depths of Tucker’s smile. Her mood improved immediately.
“I will see to everything, ma belle,” he murmured. “I only ask that you wait for me—even if other men, they make you better offers.”
Several passengers were standing up, glancing her way, as though curious about the young girl who’d been pl
otting to meet her mother. Christine smiled sweetly—because their attention confirmed her allure, and because she wanted to tease Tucker Trudeau a little.
“What better offers could they possibly make?” she asked, allowing a hint of drawl to sweeten her speech.
“Don’t ask! Maman, she will help them think of something.”
He kissed her quickly and then made his way down the aisle to the door at the back of the car. How could she not adore him? He stood head and shoulders above the others, and she still felt the tingle of his lips on hers.
When Tucker grinned at her, Christine blew him a kiss. But once she was sitting alone again, waiting as other passengers filed past, she reminded herself that they were detouring from his job for her; that her mission in Denver was much more than a parlor game played around a dimly lit table. He’d been raising difficult questions earlier to remind her of what she was getting into. If Mama were a practicing medium—and still lived here—they had to be very careful.
She couldn’t allow her impatience—or the need to see her mother again—to overrule sensibility. Billy would never forgive her if she met up with Mama and bungled it. Agatha Vanderbilt and Mercy—and Michael, too—would be disappointed if she’d gotten this close to her goal only to fail because her quicksilver emotions won out over strategy.
Never forget that you are much like Mama. Not just in looks, but in smarts. You can fight fire with fire.
The thought made her grin wickedly. And when the gentleman from the seat in front of her stood up and turned around, she was still awash with a heady sense of adventure.
“Excuse me, miss, but I couldn’t help overhearing some of your conversation, and—”
Christine’s eyes widened. His top hat and stylish overcoat gave him an aura of enterprise, and he carried a cane with a carved knob of gold. When he smiled at her, his waxed handlebar mustache—
Oh my God, it’s Richard Wyndham! He’s blocking the way out of my seat because he heard us talking about Mama, and he knows Tucker is gone and—
“—I was wondering if you might possibly be talking about Madame Bristeaux, the medium who . . . oh, my word, you could be her—her younger sister!” he said in an awestruck voice. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, or to upset you, miss—”
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