She glanced around her room. “You’re here without your—?”
A finger to his lips silenced her. “Maman, she has taken our clothes to be washed and is getting a bath. I have been to Carlton Harte’s office—”
“What time is it?” She struggled to sit up, squinting at the bright sunlight that peeked in around the curtains.
Tucker chuckled, savoring the sight of her auburn hair splayed over her pillow and the sleepy look in her eyes. “You needed your rest after such an eventful evening, chérie. Et moi, I could not sleep anyway. The note on Harte’s door says he is away on a case indefinitely.”
Christine frowned. “Does that mean he’s chasing Richard Wyndham—or whoever ran out Mama’s back door?”
“Possibly.” He kissed her brow—to indulge his senses in her warm sweetness, and to soften his other information. “I also went there—to your mama’s house again. To catch her off-guard, when she couldn’t refuse to talk to me. But she was gone.”
“What do you mean . . . gone?”
“The back door, was hanging open, blowing in the breeze. So I took the liberty of—”
“You just went inside? What if she—or Richard—”
Tucker shrugged, grinning. “That door, it would wake the dead—or bring the neighbors in, soon enough. So I shut it behind me.”
He watched her lovely face for signs that he was saying more than she could bear. “The furnishings were all there, but her clothes were gone, ma chère. The agent at the depot, he said a stagecoach got out last night, ahead of the storm—but they are delayed now, until the mountain roads can be cleared.”
“And Mama was on that coach?
“Oui.” He sighed. “Or at least a couple who signed as Mr. and Mrs. Wynn Richards.”‘
Christine struggled enough this time that he finally let her sit up.
“That’s not fair!” she protested, punching her feather pillow. “I wanted to take Mama by surprise today, and then check that cabinet—”
“It has no back, as Maman suggested. The hole through the wall is covered by another cabinet that has nothing in it. I knew you’d want to know, ma princesse. But I am no thief,” he added with a teasing grin. “I left the accordion, and the tambourine, and the other noisemakers.”
Her green eyes sparkled with fascinated fury.
“This leaves us with a decision, chérie, and I want you to consider it carefully,” he continued. “I know how badly you want to be with your mama again, and we will follow until we find her, if that’s what you decide. But I also know how badly your mama hurt you last night.”
Christine blinked to keep from crying again. Hadn’t she run out of tears yet? Why was it upsetting when Tucker was so kind to her?”
“So if you want to go back—back to Abilene, or back to school, or whatever else you were doing—” he continued softly, “then we will go.”
I want to go back to before all this happened. Before Mama ran off in the first place.
Yet she would never have met Tucker Trudeau had she stayed in Missouri; would never have attended Miss Vanderbilt’s Academy for Young Ladies and developed her talent for dress design had Mercy and Judd Monroe not taken her in.
She reached for Tucker’s hand, her pulse pounding harder. “But you have your commission with the Union Pacific to—”
Tucker shrugged again. “That is my job, oui, but this is a mission. Your happiness—your wishes—are more important than any pictures I might take of all this white snow, non?”
The firm squeeze of his hand made her heart skip. She’d received gifts from earnest young men in St. Louis, but all of them lumped together didn’t hold a candle to what Tucker had just said, and the affection with which he’d expressed it.
Christine wove her fingers between his, her thoughts driven like the snow in last night’s wind. This was the chance—the choice—of her lifetime. Her answer tickled the tip of her tongue, but she wanted to be sure. She’d never forgive herself if Tucker gave up valuable time and considerable pay to chase after the loving mother who might only exist in her childhood memories.
“Where do you think they went? How will we ever find them?” she asked. “If they don’t want to be found—if they realize Carlton Harte is tailing them—”
Christine blinked as another possibility occurred to her. “Or what if Mr. Harte is with them? Their partner in crime?”
“We can’t know everything, oui? But I can tell you, the stagecoach last night was headed west rather than back to Nebraska.” He smiled, admiring her quick wit and courage. “Just my guess, ma joie, but I’m thinking they will board the train again to escape us.”
She considered this, nodding. “How far might they go? Where would the train take them?”
Tucker held her brave, green-eyed gaze, watching for a breaking point. “The Union Pacific, it heads west across Wyoming to Utah, veering south through Nevada to California—Sacramento, California,” he explained. “That is the main route. But just as Kansas has its Kansas Pacific line, other small railways could take them to dozens of towns with train stations. Or they could disappear on a stagecoach to almost anywhere, as well, chérie.”
“California?” Christine let out a long sigh, boggled by all the possibilities. “Good Lord, we could search . . . we could be looking forever, Tucker. Like for a needle in a haystack. Like Michael tried to tell me.”
“Three needles,” he corrected. “This improves our odds, non?”
His attempt at humor made her smile. But as he was leaning in for another soft, delicious kiss, Maman bustled through the door.
“And what have you learned, mon fils?” she demanded of her son. A single arched eyebrow expressed her opinion of him sitting on Christine’s bed.
“They got out before the storm last night. I’m guessing they’ll board the train in Cheyenne—which, on the hotel express, could take them to California in just a few days.”
“Or they could disappear in any no-name town between here and there.” She gripped her carpetbag, gazing toward the windows as though she could see the couple who had eluded them. Then she focused on Christine.
“And what do you think? No doubt Tucker is letting you decide our fate.”
Christine pushed her sleep-mussed hair back from her face, noting that Veronique had arranged her own dark tresses in a neat upsweep and was wearing a simple red dress. Amazing how much younger—how fetching—she could be when she didn’t dress like the fortune teller at a carnival.
When she looked into Veronique’s dark, penetrating eyes she saw a flash of—what? Challenge? Anticipation? Encouragement?
Not the arrogance she had expected. Not a lecture on the impropriety of Tucker being in her room—or about how she was more trouble than she was worth, or less of a woman than her son deserved.
The room seemed a-flutter with a sense of fresh beginnings, as though angels had arrived to take charge—as though last night’s confrontation with Mama had cleared the air. And didn’t that sound like something the magical, mystical Veronique would say!
Christine reached under the bed for her valise, the one she’d carried whether they camped in the wagon or rode the train, the one she’d stashed beneath her bed at school and when she’d visited the Malloys. The bag she’d packed both times she rode away on a horse that wasn’t her own to find Mama.
With trembling hands she reached in and gripped the little diary. Its velvet was worn smooth now from damp hands holding it. She knew certain passages by heart; knew the pages where the ink had smeared from teardrops, Mama’s and her own.
She handed it to Veronique.
“Help me,” she whispered. “We must find Mama before it’s too late. I’ll go with you to the church, to consecrate—”
The moment Tucker’s mother touched the diary, the transformation began. Her eyes widened and glazed, as though she stared inward, at scenes no one else should see. The air left her lungs in a rush. She began to shake, and then vibrated to a high, manic pitch played on a wild
violin.
Christine fell back, awed by the powerful force that now possessed Veronique Trudeau. “Tucker, should we—”
“Shhh,” he whispered, his gaze fixed on his mother. “This happens when Maman feels the spirit of an item’s owner. It’s part of being a seer. It brings her the visions.”
Mama’s words must’ve sucked Tucker’s mother into an invisible tempest. The slender face that had looked so sophisticated moments ago was now contorted in agony, as though the diary were scorching her hands, her eyes. Her soul. Veronique’s hair was coming loose and drops of sweat—or were they tears?—ran down cheeks that now looked drawn with age.
Gasping, the seer released the diary. It landed on the bed, but Christine didn’t dare pick it up. Instead, she watched Maman’s recovery, greatly relieved that she was breathing again and blinking to regain her normal sight.
Veronique shuddered one final time and looked at her. “Tu as raison—you are right,” she rasped in her Cajun accent. “I have seen your mother with Richard Wyndham. They sit together on the train, but they plan separately. Secretly.”
She touched her mussed hair, as though she didn’t recall how it got that way. Then she looked at Christine again.
“They’re going all the way to the coast—to San Francisco. There’s going to be trouble, Christine. Your mother’s in grave danger.”
Chapter Twenty-three
“Why look—it’s a present!”
Tucker grinned as Christine tore into the box that had awaited them at the Cheyenne station. Before boarding the train for Sacramento, he’d sent General Dodge a message saying his photographs would be delayed—and then one to Michael Malloy, telling him they’d seen Virgilia Bristol and were now following her west again. He’d let Christine share whatever she cared to with Billy and the Malloys after they’d completed their quest.
In the seat beside him, she was opening the enclosed letter. “It’s from Mercy,” she said, smoothing its folds. “‘Dear Christine,’ she writes, ‘we didn’t know when you might reach Wyoming, but we wanted to remember your birthday—’ ”
Her mouth fell open. “Well, isn’t that the nicest thing?” she said, stunned.
Tucker took her hand, hoping whatever she’d received wouldn’t upset her. She’d had enough of that these past few days. “And your birthday, when is it?” he asked with a sly smile. “I have an idea for a present myself.”
That made her smile!
“December eighteenth, but—excuse me!” she hailed the conductor collecting tickets in the aisle. “What’s today’s date, please?”
“It’s the second of December, miss.”
Christine nodded, yanking the ribbon from one small package. “Everyone knows I can’t wait that long to open my—oh, it’s a lace collar! I bet Miss Vanderbilt tatted it for me! And here’s—”
She quickly unwrapped the other little item, holding it up with delight. “A cutwork handkerchief, monogrammed with a C. How . . . well, I never expected this!”
To hide the hitch in her voice, Christine read the rest of Mercy’s letter to herself.
—and to wish you all the best as you look for your mother. Aunt Agatha tucked in a lace remembrance so you’ll know how much she and the girls at school miss you, dear. Lily picked out the handkerchief at the Great Western Store in town. My satin stitching isn’t nearly as perfect as yours, but it was done with loving thoughts of you as you turn seventeen. We are all so proud of the young woman you’ve become.
A tear was trickling down each cheek now, and two little wet spots appeared on the pressed ivory linen. After all the selfish, hateful things she’d done to Mercy Malloy, she hardly deserved—
“What a pretty piece!” Veronique leaned forward from the seat facing them. “And how nice that Mrs. Malloy sent you a gift. You must miss receiving such things from your mother. I know I did.”
Nodding mutely, Christine passed the collar and handkerchief across to her. She loved presents; had gotten plenty of them back home before the war. But why did her birthday—and every holiday—have to be so difficult now?
“My parents put me in a convent school, you see,” Tucker’s mother continued. “When Mama realized I’d inherited the second sight, and the ability to heal that her mother had struggled with, well—”
Veronique glanced out the train’s window as though these memories haunted her. For a moment, there was only the chugging of the train as it accelerated, and the other passengers’ quiet conversations.
“She claimed it was to protect me from the rumors that plagued Grandmaman throughout her lifetime. But I knew my visions and spirit summonings made her . . . very nervous.”
“You grew up in a convent?” Christine focused on the woman who was gazing raptly at her satin-stitched hanky. “That makes the Academy for Young Ladies sound very free and lenient. How did you ever meet Tucker’s father?”
Veronique’s pointed stare made her wish she’d kept her mouth shut. Beside her, Tucker shifted on the seat.
Fine dang can of worms you opened now, came Billy’s voice in her head.
Tucker’s mother composed herself; those small, dark eyes shone with purpose rather than regret. “It is a natural question for you to ask,” she said quietly, “and it is an answer my son has long deserved. Growing up with only a mother’s love has been difficult for him at times.”
“Maman, if you don’t want to—”
“No, it is time,” she insisted. “When parents hide the truth from their children, the real stories often get revealed at the wrong times. Raising you alone wasn’t easy, mon fils, but you have been the light of my life.”
She sighed, and then began in a pensive voice. “The Sisters at the convent believed I brought on my ‘seizures’—that I was trying for their attention in a dramatic way, when I spoke to spirits they couldn’t see.”
“Even though they believe in angels?” Christine asked. “And miracles? And the immaculate conception of Jesus?”
Veronique shrugged prettily. “I did win favor with my healing skills, since no one else birthed babies or knew about herbal remedies. So, although they wouldn’t allow me to take my vows, I developed my medical skills and received an education far beyond most women’s. I was the only student ever allowed to use the abbot’s extensive library.”
“Which explains why you’re talking as you do now, instead of like a Cajun,” Christine surmised.
“My bayou neighbors wouldn’t have trusted a traiteur who sounded citified,” she replied with a wry smile. “My accent and habits helped me fit in. And they coincided with my other quirks, as outsiders saw it.”
Christine considered this, suspecting Tucker’s mother knew a lot more than she was telling. But then, wasn’t she learning firsthand how mothers sometimes did things their children didn’t want to hear about?
“So you met my father outside the convent? While you were healing people?”
Christine felt the thrum of Tucker’s apprehension in the hand that held hers so tightly. Had his mother made up stories when he was a boy? Or had intuition told him not to ask about his other parent?
Veronique drew a deep breath and let it out. Then she smiled at him, coming to terms with her memories. Her past.
“Your father was overjoyed that he was about to have his first child,” she replied, “and I see his excitement every time you smile, ma joie. You can understand his despair when that baby was stillborn, and his wife succumbed to birthing fever just a few days later.
“I, too, was devastated,” she continued, shaking her head. “I was only seventeen—Christine’s age—dabbling in the mysteries of life and death and medicine. I’d done my very best to save her, but it was a hard lesson, learning that some things are beyond our control no matter how skilled we are.”
Christine’s jaw dropped. Beside her, Tucker tensed, as though he’d guessed the rest of the story.
“To comfort him, I summoned the spirit of his wife. Zach Tucker and his Adelaide had been so much in love, I felt
honored to give them a few more moments together.”
She sat as in a trance, recalling these events in a faraway voice. “Zach found it a comfort to know she and the baby were beyond their pain. It was my chance to bring a happier ending to the most difficult situation I’d ever faced. We embraced afterward and . . .”
Veronique paused, flushing. “It was my first time with a man. You were conceived in joyful innocence and exuberance, my son.”
“But he would not marry you?”
Was it her imagination, or did everyone around them become very, very quiet? Christine wondered if her hand would survive his grip, but she dared not pull away. Tucker looked incensed. Yet his glower disguised a vulnerability she’d never seen on his strong, handsome face.
“The Sisters knew what had happened the moment I returned. It was written all over my face,” she said with a rueful laugh. “They could allow no such goings-on with a traiteur in their charge, so they sent me home. I prayed night and day that Zach would find me . . . that we would become a family. But I realize now that the Sisters would’ve refused him any information.”
Veronique sighed with her recollections. “Mama and Papa wanted no further scandal with a daughter whose arcane abilities already threatened their standing in the upper circles of New Orleans. So a colored servant whisked me away to her family’s little hut back in the bayou to have my baby.
“I knew better than to return home with my boy,” she said. “So I made do. Learned more about herbal healing from the woman I stayed with—who delivered Tucker. Made my own way, with the gifts God gave me.”
Her smile became fragile, imploring Christine to understand without begging forgiveness. “So do you see how Tucker is all I have? Why he’s my reason for being, after twenty-four years? Maybe this explains why I’m not so good at sharing him.”
Veronique smiled, reaching out her hands. Tucker grabbed them, and then pulled his maman into an embrace that had them laughing and hugging and crying all at once.
Journey to Love (Angels of Mercy) Page 21