Colorado Moonfire

by Charlotte Hubbard

  He sat at an easel in the far corner, his paintbrush poised in front of a large canvas. “Why did I know you’d storm in here without knocking?” he asked in a frosty voice. “Hollingsworth was right. You need some lessons in deportment—”

  “Where’s my coat? My clothing?” she demanded.

  Frazier’s face lit up with a mocking grin. “Going somewhere, Miss O’Riley? Not twenty minutes ago you were begging me to protect you from Connor, who’ll most surely grab you the moment he sees—”

  “He just left, damn it! Now where are my clothes?”

  “They smelled, dear-heart,” he snapped, “so I imagine they’re being laundered, if Hollingsworth didn’t have the sense to throw them out!”

  Her heart was sinking like a brick in a well, but Lyla fought to keep a straight face. She couldn’t leave now and would undoubtedly be kept under constant watch. And what could’ve happened to all that money? Would the two loyal servants report their find to Frazier, or split the take?

  “You are the crudest, most insidious bastard I’ve ever met, and by the saints you’ll pay!” she blurted. “You’ll pay for what you’re doing to me—for what you did to Barry Thompson!”

  Foxe sat silently, observing her with unnerving calm. “Feel better, now that you’ve had a little cry and vented your frustrations?” he asked lightly. He leaned forward to stroke more paint onto his canvas, and then peered at her through his monocle. “Actually, it’s good you’ve come in. Your complexion’s even lovelier in this light. If you promise not to have any more outbursts, you may step closer and see what I’m painting. It was to be a surprise, but perhaps now’s the best time to show it to you.”

  Lyla watched warily from a few feet away. For the first time she was seeing Frazier without a suit coat. His collar was undone and his shirt sleeves were rolled to his elbows…and his hands were bare! Curiosity bit hard. She wanted to see what he was doing, but most of all she wished to know what mysteries he hid beneath the dozens of pairs of gloves he wore.

  “What do you think? I daresay I’ve created a vision of loveliness every female in Cripple will envy and any man would kill for.”

  Her mouth fell open but no sound came out. Frazier Foxe’s hands were covered with shiny, hairless, oddly-layered skin of a ghastly red that made the bottom drop out of her stomach. They were hands that had been burned and hadn’t healed properly…hands scorched by the fires of hell.

  Frazier looked up from his palette. “Well, I’ll give you credit for not screaming.” he commented wryly. “What you see is the result of a little scheme that backfired, literally. Thirty years old, I was, and still didn’t heed my mother’s warning about playing with matches.”

  Lyla swallowed hard to keep the bile from rising in her throat. “So that’s why you…pay other men to light your fires now?”

  “Clever girl,” he said with a wink. “One burnt offering per lifetime is quite enough. Wounds such as these raise too many questions, and since the physician of that particular town was the sheriff’s brother, I doctored myself.”

  “Do…do they hurt?”

  “Now that the skin’s glazed over they’re not nearly so painful as when the gloves stuck to the unhealed wounds. Merely stiff when I type or paint.” Frazier raised an eyebrow and then applied a few more strokes. “Don’t tell me you’re actually feeling sorry for me.”

  “No! I—” She stepped closer so she could relieve her horror by looking at his canvas. “I know some herbal cures that might—”

  “No thank you, dear-heart,” he said with a knowing grin. “To prevent any chance of you poisoning me, I’d have to ask Hollingsworth to undergo your cure first. And I’m not about to show him these hands after all the years I’ve remained gloved in his presence. Now, what do you think? Personally, I feel it’s my best likeness of you yet.”

  Lyla was too stunned to speak. The canvas glowed with fresh oils in whites and pastels, a full-length bridal portrait that featured an exquisitely-detailed gown and veil yet drew her eye to the bride’s radiant face—her own! Her cheeks were like velvet roses; her periwinkle eyes shone with happiness; her honey-brown hair was pulled up into a graceful knot with enchanting tendrils peeking out from the veil’s beaded edge. “But…how do you—”

  “Oh, I used these as my models,” he explained with a wave of his paintbrush. “I’ve sketched you countless times, my love. Your face captured my fancy from the first moment I saw you—you were at the Angel Claire when Mick was applying for his job. Which was the main reason I insisted upon taking you under my wing when he died.”

  His collection of sketches filled the corner behind him: all poses, all moods, some in pastel chalks, some in pencil or ink. In one she wore the red plaid dress, in another the silver-blue taffeta…and one showed her nude from the waist up, smiling coquettishly over her shoulder as she grasped the lavender gown beneath breasts that were lush and ripe in profile.

  It was flattering to be the object of a talented artist’s admiration, and yet the longer Lyla gazed at these images of herself, the more frightened she became. Frazier Foxe was a man obsessed. His impressions were amazingly accurate while being better than life: the girl in the pictures was a fantasy, rendered with romantic strokes and heightened colors. Yet Lyla recalled all the moments he’d captured—or she certainly could have looked this way in these dresses. A chill went up her spine when she glanced again at the nude. Mother of God, he must’ve been peeking into the pantry the evening of McClanahan’s bachelor party, seeing her from the same perspective Barry Thompson did after she’d undone her corset!

  “You haven’t said a word, dear-heart,” Frazier murmured. “Surely you recognize—”

  “Oh yes,” she replied in a strangled voice. “You have a true talent, Mr. Foxe. A marvelous eye. But I was wondering…well, these sketches are all from the past, yet your canvas portrays me—”

  “In a dress you haven’t yet seen?” The man beside her chuckled, pleased with himself as he tapped a small sketch that rested on the rack of his easel. “I designed your wedding gown, dear-heart, just as I drew sketches of your other dresses for Mrs. Delacroix to follow when she sewed them for you.”

  Lyla frowned. “But I’d hoped to—”

  “Never fear, my sweet, I specified all the finest satins and laces. These leg-of-mutton sleeves will show you off wonderfully, and the deep vee of beaded lace on the bodice will accentuate your finest features,” he said gaily. “Nothing but the best for my lovely bride…my sweet, lovely Lyla-bride.”

  Her mouth turned to cotton and took on the acrid, coppery taste of total fear. This man had taken great delight in destroying all she held dear, yet he idealized her as the picture of perfection—a picture he’d created for himself by dressing her so finely. Frazier Foxe was placing her high upon a pedestal of fantasy, and Lyla was now afraid for her life. If for one moment she defied the image he’d conjured up—if she fell below his level of expectation, or broke the premarital agreement she’d signed, he’d deem her as expendable as Barry Thompson had been.

  To keep her sanity, she pursued her original point. “When you said we’d plan the wedding, I was hoping I could choose my gown and select my bridesmaids, and…”

  Frazier’s scowl made her falter. “You were hoping for a trip to Cripple, I take it?”

  “Well, of course!” Lyla challenged him with a frown of her own. “Surely a man who has the law in his pocket isn’t afraid to set foot in—”

  “I am not the problem, dear-heart! My picture isn’t on Wanted posters in every storefront.”

  “A picture you drew!” she blurted. “How am I supposed to have invitations printed or ask the priest—”

  “It’s all been arranged.” Her captor’s waxed mustache lifted above his grin, and he resumed his painting as though the conversation bored him. “Since Connor and his men were due for a trip to town, to buy supplies for my sheepherders, I sent specific instructions along with them. Mrs. Delacroix will receive a sketch and specifications for you
r gown, the chef at the New Yorker will prepare the buffet, the printer has his information, and Reverend Bailey will perform the ceremony. Any questions?”

  Lyla felt her heart sinking. “I’m Catholic,” she mumbled.

  “You’re mine,” he replied coolly. “As a major contributor to the Presbyterian church, I intend to say my vows in the sanctuary I paid for.”

  He was becoming churlish, probably so she would leave him to his painting, but Lyla remained by his side. She hated his moods; at times like this Frazier proved just what a hypocritical bastard he was, yet these tormenting moments were when he usually revealed what she needed to know to escape him. “May I ask how the invitation will read?” she inquired bitterly.

  He responded to her glare with a smirk. “We’re to be wed on February fourteenth. Two o’clock.”

  St. Valentine’s Day! Of course this madman would knot her noose on the most romantic day of the year. “And what about bridesmaids? Surely you won’t ask me to stand alone at the altar.”

  “Grace Putnam will attend you.”

  The Indian princess? She’d hoped to be comforted by Emily McClanahan’s steadying presence, hoped Matt could be working behind the scenes to convict Frazier before the wedding could even take place. And now she’d have one of Barry’s former consorts to contend with. “I suppose she’s on your payroll, too?”

  “No, no. Just an old friend—a kindred spirit, you might say.” Frazier laid his brush aside and stretched like a pampered cat. “Grace and I met years ago in Dodge City. She had a tattoo parlor above one of the saloons—an effort to support herself without having to whore. With the clientele she attracted, however, she decided to charge for all her services rather than constantly being forced into nonprofitable situations.”

  “I suppose I should feel grateful that you saved me from a similar fate?” she asked archly.

  “I suppose you should. But I know better, don’t I?”

  Was he implying she was ungrateful, or that she’d done some whoring? Lyla didn’t care. He was so damned smug about pulling her strings, as though she was his pretty little puppet—as though he could anticipate her moves and twist them toward his own purposes! Her only consolation was that Frazier Foxe apparently had no desire to caress her with his horribly-deformed hands.

  And as he stretched again, something even more amazing caught her eye. This paragon of the upper crust, who wore only the most fashionable, expensive clothing, sported a tattoo!

  Boldly, Lyla tugged his shirt sleeve toward his elbow to get a better look. “I assume this is Grace’s work?”

  “Yes. Handsome little devil, isn’t he?” Frazier flexed his arm to make the animal move. It resembled a dragon, in greens and blues, with a long tail and a ridged back—and a slender red tongue shooting out to encircle the bone of Foxe’s wrist. “I’ve always admired the chameleon. Able to adapt to changing environments by altering his colors so that his prey never knows he’s there until he strikes.”

  Even before he finished speaking, her pulse was pounding. Mick had babbled hysterically about chameleons during his dying moments, as though trying to warn her. Barry had said the Chameleon Club was an opium den on Myers Avenue. Why did she sense her captor was connected to both these circumstances in some horrendous way she didn’t want to hear about, yet had to? “I…I suppose you belong to the Chameleon Club?” she asked in a quavery voice.

  “Belong? I own it!” Her startled expression made him laugh, a humorless sound that said the joke was again on her. “I have no use for people who lie around in smoky stupors puffing on pipes. Unless I can profit from them, of course.”

  “That comes as no surprise,” Lyla mumbled. Something told her to leave now, before this wily Foxe shattered what little remained of the life she’d cherished, but when she turned he grasped her by the wrist. The flesh of his hand was as cold and deadly as the voice he continued with.

  “If you go poking under rocks, you’re liable to get bit, Miss O’Riley. Or, put another way, curiosity killed the cat.” Frazier pulled her against his side, his face contorted with a nasty little grin. “Your dear brother came to the club a time or two, when I was visiting the manager. Does that shock you, dear-heart?”

  “Liar!” she spat. “You’ve lied about everything else; why should I believe Mick smoked opium?”

  “Dear, sweet Lyla…so willing to see the best in others,” he crooned, tightening his grip. “It’s a pity Mick didn’t share your outlook. Had he taken me up on an offer, he’d be alive today.”

  Bile rose in her throat: he was forcing her to ask for the rest of a story she wished to remain ignorant of. “Wh—what do you mean? Why do you torment me this way?”

  “Because I have no one else to confess to. Because I’m a lonely man who needs to share his blackest secrets with someone who can’t betray me.” He kissed her hand, chuckling when she flinched. “Yes, Mick had the opportunity to be elsewhere when the Angel Claire exploded, but he balked. Nigel Grath volunteered to work for me instead.”

  Sweat popped out on her upper lip, yet Lyla felt a chill descend upon her. “Nigel Grath blew up the Angel Claire, and—and you paid him! You killed my brother! You goddamned—”

  Frazier sprang from his chair and caught her in the crook of his elbow, stifling her screams with his other lizardlike hand. “Do you want Allegra and Hollingsworth to come see about this commotion, you little fool?” he demanded in a harsh whisper. “Now shut up, or by God I’ll bloody well kill you, too!”

  He was surprisingly strong, and in her shock Lyla lacked the strength to struggle away from him. All of Cripple Creek had speculated that Grath, the Angel Claire’s maniacal blaster, was too unbalanced to carry out his devastation alone, and now she knew who had really orchestrated the explosion that had killed sixteen miners and left Emily Burnham’s mine in a shambles.

  “Why?” she demanded hoarsely. “Were you trying to ruin Emily so she’d be dependent upon you, too?”

  “Not at all. I respected her father a great deal and didn’t particularly choose his mine as my target,” Foxe replied smoothly. “But Grath was willing to further my cause, and the Angel Claire was where he happened to work.”

  “And just what is your cause, Mr. Foxe?” Hot tears ran down her cheeks as she glared at the Englishman who still held her in his cruel embrace.

  “Actually, I wanted to stir the miners up, to incite violence over the dangerous working conditions in all the district’s mines.”

  “Why? So hundreds would die instead of just sixteen?”

  He laid a finger upon her lips, his monocle twinkling as he clucked over her. “Lyla, Lyla…so gloriously beautiful when you’re enraged this way.” he whispered. “Connor’s going to owe me—”

  “Shut up about Connor! Why did you have Grath blast the Angel Claire?” she demanded.

  Frazier chortled, implying that the answer was all too obvious. “It was the beginning of the end for your Marshal Thompson,” he said softly. “If thousands of men wouldn’t return to work, he’d have had riots and looting—more unrest than he could handle. People would’ve demanded a more effective lawman, someone who could restore order to prevent uprisings like we had a few years ago.”

  “And I suppose you had his replacement all picked out?”

  “Indeed. With blessings from a friend who’s a federal marshal himself.”

  Lyla scowled at the depth of this man’s corruption. “But it didn’t work. Barry had no trouble at all maintaining order, because Silas Hughes and Emily convinced their men to clear away the rubble and return to work.”

  Frazier shrugged. “I got my way in the end, didn’t I? Thompson’s gone, his deputy’s come into my fold, and now that the robbery victims have recovered their valuables, Cripple Creek’s ready to be ushered into a new era of industrial expansion.”

  “Which means your refinery will be built whether the mine owners want it or not? With their money?”

  “You’re one of the most astute young ladies I’ve ever met,�
�� he said with sincere admiration. “And contrary to Thompson’s arguments, the mines will continue to produce for at least another decade, according to my geological advisors. It’s not as though I’m pulling the wool over anyone’s eyes.”

  Lyla smirked. “But you are fleecing them, aren’t you? If it’s your scheme, it has to be crooked.”

  Foxe’s laughter climbed the scale until it was a girlish, uncontrolled giggle. Then he steered her toward the door, his grip tightening again. “You ask too many questions, dear-heart. Surely you’ve learned that your inquisitive nature will only bring you pain here in my house. For your own good, I’m going to have to lock you in your room until dinner.”

  Chapter 21

  The days dragged into weeks, and Lyla’s only reason to keep track of time was the St. Valentine’s Day wedding that loomed ahead. The momentous event, undoubtedly the most ostentatious occasion Cripple would ever see, would merely seal the doom she was already suffering. How could things possibly get worse? By day she was under constant watch and each night she was locked into her bedroom.

  Miss Keating and Hollingsworth, often her wardens, had to know something was terribly wrong. What sane man kept his fiancée under guard and didn’t allow her to set foot outside his house? Yet the two said nothing. They made the commonest of talk—“Your breakfast, miss,” or “Have you anything that needs to be laundered?”—and otherwise found nothing to share with her in conversation.

  Lyla felt like the proverbial bird in a gilded cage, never to be set free, nevermore to sing. Frazier appeased her with gifts, which he had delivered to the estate so he wouldn’t have to leave her unattended. Fresh roses adorned her vanity and imported chocolates, scented soaps, lustrous alabaster combs, and many other offerings arrived each week, and only served to remind her of the one gift she longed for but would never receive: her freedom.