Fair Is the Rose

by Meagan Mckinney

  "When we get to New York, I will discuss things with her sister and brother-in-law. They will confirm her story."

  "No one else in the family has ever spoken up about Baldwin Didier. I wired New York to get the story before we came to Noble. It's true, Cain. I just can't stand to see you—"

  "There was a half-breed sent by her uncle to kill her. He had the poster. That proves her story."

  "There was an enormous bounty on her head if her whereabouts could be found. He wanted the bounty. He probably never even met Didier."

  "Why are you saying all of this?" Cain shot a glance at Christal, who was again walking down the carpeted aisle of the first-class car to check each passenger's face. His eyes flooded with worry and another unnamed emotion that burned with passion.

  "I'm saying this because I think you ought to remove yourself from her. You can't do anything that her family can't do ten times over with their money. Sheridan's one of the richest men in New York."

  "I know that—"

  "What can you do for her that they cannot? Why are you letting yourself be torn apart by this girl's problems? It's not worth it, the conclusion will be a bad one. The girl's going to go to prison, I don't see any way around it. There's no evidence she's innocent."

  "She is innocent." Cain closed his eyes, as if he could no longer bear the sight of Christal's face as she desperately searched the car.

  "I was at Fredericksburg, Cain. I was in Hooker's regiment when we went to take the sunken lane. We lost half our troops to you Confederates that day. You men were just as snug as a snail in a shell behind that wall and we were like lines of prisoners before a firing squad every time we tried to advance."

  "What does this have to do with—?"

  "I saw you, as did everyone else in my regiment who survived the advance. We heard the cries of Jimmy O'Toole with his legs half gone, whimpering for one blessed drink of water before he died. We still talk about the Georgia Gentleman as if he were some myth spun by our forefathers. You know the man, Cain. The Reb who came over that ridge and crawled on his belly beneath the wall of fire to quiet the enemy with a sip from his canteen ..."

  "As I said, what does this—?"

  "A man who has honor like that, even if he is a damned Secesh, shouldn't have to lose twice. You lost the war, Macaulay, don't lose this one too. Extract yourself now. Christabel Van Alen is a heartbreaker, but she's a lost cause. She's going to go to jail. Maybe forever."

  Cain was silent. He watched Christal, carefully shuttering away the emotion in his eyes. "I stood by my country when it was a lost cause. I abandoned it only when I was forced to. I won't do less now."

  Rollins stared at him like a Yank staring at a crazy Reb, until finally he sighed and nodded to gather up his men. "We'll do whatever you think is necessary, then. You just give us the word, Cain, and you know we'll do it." After this cryptic statement, he added, "... until we reach New York and it's out of our hands."

  Macaulay understood.

  Inside the baggage car a man was just finished dressing, while another, Henry Glassie, was once more stripped down to his union suit, and bound and gagged, hidden among the bags of mail. That was where the man had come from, Glassie surmised, finally coming out of the darkness caused by the blow to his head.

  He peered at Baldwin Didier through the dirty canvas sacks of mail. Didier was not so portly as Henry Glassie, but he did fit his suit rather well, once the suspenders were in place holding up the too large trousers. The coat was too large also, but if it was left unbuttoned there was enough doubt about its cut that one could surmise, briefly, that it had been made for Didier.

  Didier removed the coat and stepped to the bags of mail, throwing aside one that hid Glassie's face. Henry Glassie's eyes shut in the split second when light hit his face.

  Didier studied him a long time, then he covered him with another bag of mail. Through a part in the bags, Glassie shifted his head ever so slightly and resumed his spying. Didier had rummaged through one of the fine leather trunks and removed a silver cup. He dumped a white powder into it and filled it with water from the leak on the roof of the car. Glassie hadn't a clue as to what Didier was doing, until he removed a small brush and mirror, and proceeded to shave.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  When Christal, Cain, and the marshals returned to their train car, Mr. Glassie was seated at the back near the baggage door, fast asleep, his face partially covered by his fine beaver hat. Cain motioned to wake him. Christal knew he wanted to ask about the baggage car, but she stopped him. "If there was anyone in there, would he be asleep like this? We were gone so long, he probably fell asleep waiting for us."

  Cain removed his hand from Glassie's shoulder. "All right. Leave him be. We need to talk anyway. No sense having to get rid of this busybody to do it. Come over here." He took her hand and led her to the opposite bench, as far from the marshals circling the stove as he could get.

  Across the way, on the opposite bench, Glassie let out a loud, snoring gasp and shifted positions. Cain ignored him.

  "What's wrong? I saw you speaking with Rollins." She quietly waited for the bad news. Because it was always bad news.

  Cain picked up her hand, the one with the scar, and traced every petal with his finger. His expression was pensive, determined, fear-inspiring. He was an awesome sight in this mood, she thought. But then he'd always taken her breath away.

  "The train will be stopping in about an hour in Abbeville."

  "Are you afraid Didier might get aboard?"

  "No, Rollins and the other marshals will make sure he won't."

  Christal locked gazes with Cain. She was able to read the frosty depths of his eyes more easily now. Something was definitely wrong. He had more to say to her, but he didn't seem ready.

  "At Abbeville I want you to escape."

  The muscles in her body grew rigid with shock. She stared at him, disbelief on her face. "But—but—why now?" she stammered.

  He squeezed her scarred hand as if he needed desperately to hold on to it. "I know better than anyone that some battles you just can't win. Rollins pointed that out to me just now. I don't know if we can win, Christal. And if I lose this one, I don't think I could take it. The law be damned, I know you didn't do this and I'll believe it until the day I die. So at Abbeville, get off the train when I nod and lose yourself in the town. I'll be back for you in an hour. When we cross Big Crimloe Creek, the train has to slow and mount the rise to the bridge. I'll jump off the train there. It'll be a day before Rollins can catch up. The next stop after Abbeville isn't for hours."

  "Rollins knows about this, doesn't he? He's going to help because he's your friend. You're all breaking the law for me—"

  "No, not for you, Christal. For us. Do you understand? For us. The war took away my whole family, it took away my home and my country. I don't have anything left but you. If I lose you, I have nothing."

  "We'll be running forever."

  "I know the life well."

  She looked at him. He smiled bitterly. A renegade smile.

  "With my brother-in-law's help, I might be able to get a new trial. Shouldn't we give it a try?"

  "When we get to New York, they aren't going to let us breathe, girl. There'll be no more opportunities after this."

  "Do you really want to do this? It's against everything I know about you." She looked into his eyes, her own eyes pleading.

  "I have to do this." He looked at her as if he were searching her soul through her eyes. Softly, he touched his lips to hers. "It's not the life I choose, Christal, but I'd choose no life to a life without you."

  The train slowed. The whistle blew, signaling Abbeville.

  "Oh, God, are you sure?" she whispered, frightened. The plan seemed crazy, doomed to fail. Though it hurt, she even wondered if he'd decided she was guilty.

  His face had turned into a stony mask. "I'm going to walk to the front of the car and begin a hand of poker with Rollins. The marshals will follow. When the train stops, exit o
ut the rear. I'll join you in Abbeville in an hour. We'll have a horse and be gone before nightfall."

  He stood and she clutched his hand. Then she let him go, watching in mute desperation as he moved to join the other men at the front of the car.

  Mr. Glassie let out another rumble beneath the hat. He was still fast asleep. There would be no time to say farewell.

  Slowly she stood and watched Macaulay. He adamantly refused to look at her, as if that might betray her escape. She slid back the rear door between the passenger car and the baggage car. It gave a miserable creak. Almost artificially, none of the marshals turned their heads to look.

  For a brief moment she stood on the small platform between the cars, breathing the fresh air of freedom. Her heart pumped in her chest, a sign of her fear and exhilaration.

  The door to the passenger car slid open.

  She spun around, sure that Rollins or another marshal had seen her leave, but the face that met her was unfamiliar. Yet familiar. She thought for a moment the man was Mr. Glassie come to join her for some air. It was not. She looked at the man's eyes.

  She knew.

  "Oh, Christabel, at long last, our time has come."

  The door closed behind him. She stepped back and briefly lost her balance on the precarious edge of the platform. He caught her arm and shoved her into the baggage car.

  "Where is Henry Glassie?" she choked, suddenly realizing how they'd been duped. She stared at Didier. She hardly knew him without his trademark Vandyke.

  "Our friend is napping among the mail. Shall I wake him and do away with you both?" He smiled.

  Before she could answer, a commotion ensued outside on the platform. A woman was arguing with her husband.

  "But I did bring it! We gave it to the conductor and he put it inside this car, right here."

  "You didn't bring it, Martha, I would have remembered," he husband explained, exasperated.

  "Conductor! Open this car! We have baggage inside!"

  Didier clamped his hand over Christal's mouth and drew her into the shadows behind the Chinese crates. The car door slid open.

  "There it is!" the woman exclaimed, her arm extending into the car, pointing to an orange carpetbag. "I told you I brought it, Howard, you old fool."

  "Yes, dear." They heard the sounds of Howard as he climbed into the car and dumped the bag onto Abbeville's crude wooden platform.

  "Anybody else want their bag?" the conductor cried out, looking for other passengers.

  Christal struggled against Didier to call out, but he held her firm, crushed against his chest, his hand silencing her. In despair, she smelled the English lime water he bought from Lord and Taylor. Only the best for Baldwin Didier. She and Alana had bought a bottle for Didier as a wedding present when he was to marry their spinster aunt. She could still remember their aunt's face, so beautiful and serene, her dream of marriage come true at last. She wondered if her aunt ever knew she had married a monster.

  The conductor slammed the door shut. They were in darkness except for the light shining through the roof where it leaked melting snow.

  "You thought you had eluded me, didn't you, my darling niece?" Didier let her go. She fell against the side of the car when the train lurched to a start.

  "My sister knows the story," she panted, trying to keep her balance in the moving train. Her mouth was dry from fear. "Before I ran from New York I wrote her a letter telling her everything about the night you killed our parents. If you kill me, it doesn't matter. The end will be the same. She'll see you hanged for your crimes even without me."

  "If your sister had anything but your word against mine, her rich and powerful mick of a husband would have seen to that long ago."

  "No doubt they couldn't find you to hang you with the evidence. I heard you disappeared shortly after Alana's wedding." It took all her courage to answer him. Trapped in a boxcar with her uncle was like being in the belly of the beast.

  "I went looking for you, my girl. I went all over the damned world . . . looking for you. I spent all the money I had left to bring me here. Oh, well, there are other lonely, wealthy women like your aunt. I have a prospect in Paris, and there was a widow in Spain, a Basque with quite a gourmet appetite for the bedroom. I shall enjoy them all, as soon as I have rid myself of you."

  "How do you think you mean to get away with this?" she asked, terror streaming through her blood like a narcotic. "There are five U.S. Marshals in the next car and one in particular—"

  "Ah, yes, him. I've heard a lot about your paramour. He's almost legend out here, isn't he? Yet imagine his surprise when he jumps the train and enters Abbeville only to find you not there—yes, I did hear your plans as I took my little 'nap.' " He chuckled.

  "Macaulay will know you got to me. He knows I would meet him unless I was unable to." She was glad it was dark and he couldn't see the doubt and fear in her eyes.

  "On the contrary, my dear. He will think he gave you a chance to flee, one which you embraced wholeheartedly. There will be quite a bad taste in his mouth, I imagine, when you don't meet him in Abbeville. Surely then he will know the heinous crimes they convicted you of in

  New York were true. He will go mad thinking how you duped him."

  "No . . ." she whispered, her terror springing to life anew. She shook her head, as if denying his words might make them untrue, but there was no fault to his logic. She was going to die by Didier's hand and the worst was that, in the end, Macaulay, her love, would believe she was a murderess.

  "Don't think about it, lovely girl. You and your sister were always such lovely girls. I really didn't want it to end this way. I thought you would all die quietly in the fire. It's distasteful to me to have to take such an active role in your death. I hope you can forgive me." He touched her cheek, leaving the scent of limes, the same smell he left in the wake of a visit to Washington Square. It lingered in the parlor and trailed into the foyer, a presence unto itself. The fresh, tropical scent of death.

  "My aunt was in love with you. You fulfilled her every dream when you asked her to marry you. Did you ever make her happy? Did you ever like my parents? Have you no remorse at all for what you've done?" Her words were accusing, yet little girl-like. In her naiveté, she wanted answers. She wanted to take solace in the knowledge that all the pain in her life had been governed by more than one man's whim. If she were to die without even that, it would be a cruel death indeed.

  "On the night your aunt died, Christal, she forgave me. If I never loved her, she at least loved me. And isn't that what brings us true happiness? To have what we love?"

  "Did you kill her? Did you kill my aunt too?" The question had burned through her mind all the years since her memory returned.

  "No," he whispered gravely. "In some ways, our marriage provided my happiness too. Your aunt was not an impoverished woman, you know, Christal. Her fortune gave me moments of pleasure—on Wall Street—and at the hotel where I kept my mistress."

  He stepped toward her, his heavy build swaying with the motion of the speeding train. "But upon your aunt's death, I discovered my terrible appetite. I was a creature who fed on money. Your aunt's fortune was spent and there was no more to come. I was in dire straits. Unless" —he cocked one gray eyebrow, his words ending in a hiss—"unless I found a way to get the entire Van Alen fortune. With you and your family dead, I would be the one to inherit. Ah, what choice did I have but to kill your parents and torch their bedroom?"

  "You're a monster," she said, her hatred finally overcoming her fear.

  He smiled bitterly, still quite handsome for his age. "Yes, a monster. You've pegged me well, Christal. You're an intelligent girl, I've always known it. I want you to know I did not enjoy putting you in Park View. I did not enjoy breaking your spirit. It was a messy, unplanned end, even for a man such as me—a monster. You see, I wanted you and your sister dead. I wanted the Van Alen money without the Van Alens, but after the fire when I discovered both you and Alana had lived, I became too cowardly. Then, when you were
convicted of the murders I, myself, had committed, I feared my fortune was too good to test by trying to murder the survivors. I left you and your sister alone, and now I pay the price for that, because look what it's brought me."

  He stared at her. She found a strange intimacy for her in his eyes, like the intimacy of lovers. But this intimacy was tinged with blood. It was a killer's intimacy with his victim.

  "It is not easy being a monster, Christal," he whispered.

  She said nothing. She simply stared at him with grave blue eyes and searched futilely for compassion.

  "I'm a monster cursed with intelligence. I understand all too well what I do and why I do it. And lo, it gives me night terrors I would not wish on any of my victims." He met her gaze. "I killed your father first. He was asleep. I hit him on the head with that heavy brass candlestick and he never opened his eyes. It's your mother who haunts me. She was so beautiful. So land and gracious. When I killed her I knew I was a monster. She awakened and we struggled. She begged me not to—"

  "Don't—oh, God, don't—" she uttered, unable to hear it. Hurt and anger swelled in her throat like bile.

  "Don't be like her, Christal," he whispered, drawing her against him. The scent of limes was overpowering. "Don't beg me for mercy. Let this be quick. I want you brave and pure and defiant, as you are now—"

  She broke loose and ran for the door. She threw it open and screamed, but he yanked her back. He slammed the door behind them and silence reigned once more on the prairie, the only unnatural noise the chug chug chug of the train rolling over steel-girded tracks.