“My father lied to you because I told him to!” Lee snapped.
She took a step backward. “Lied? So you admit it? What would take you away on our wedding night? There was no medical emergency. I somehow doubt that your mysterious Mr. Smith actually exists, so where were you?”
Leander didn’t answer for a moment, as he turned to look back at the distant forest and eat his sandwich. He wasn’t going to compound his problems with another lie. “I can’t tell you,” he said quietly.
“You won’t tell me.” She turned away, heading for the cabin.
He caught her arm. “No, I can’t tell you.” His face showed his rising anger. “Damn it, Blair! I’ve not done anything to deserve your mistrust. I was not out with another woman. Lord, but I can barely handle one woman, much less two. Don’t you realize that it had to be something important, something dire, to take me away on my wedding night? Why the hell can’t you trust me? Why do you believe my father, who was lying on my behalf, and that bitch in there who makes her living by stealing?”
He dropped her arm. “Go on, then. Go ahead and believe her. That’s just what she wants. I’m sure she’d like nothing better than to see us at each other’s throats. It’d be much easier for her to escape one captor than two. If she keeps on, and you continue believing her, another couple of hours and you’ll help her escape just to get the two of us apart.”
Feeling quite weak, Blair sat down on the grass. “I don’t know what to believe. She seems to know so much about you, but then I have no right to expect you to be faithful. You didn’t want to marry me in the first place. It was only a competition.”
Leander grabbed her upper arm and hauled her to her feet. “Get back to the cabin,” he said with teeth clenched, then turned his back to her.
Blair was bewildered by everything. Her head down, her feet dragging, she started back to the cabin. One time Aunt Flo had complained to her husband that Blair knew nothing about life. “If a man told her she’d broken his heart,” Aunt Flo said, “Blair’d look in some medical text to find out how to sew it back together. Medicine is not all there is to life.”
Blair stopped and turned back toward Lee. “Have you really never been to Florence?” she asked softly, but the sound carried in the silent forest.
He took a moment before he turned to look at her. His face was unyielding. “Never.”
Cautiously, Blair took a step toward him. “She’s not really your type, is she? I mean, she’s too skinny and doesn’t have enough on top or bottom, does she?”
“Not nearly enough.” Still, his face didn’t change as he watched her approach.
“And she wouldn’t know a hernia from a headache, would she?”
He watched her until she was standing in front of him. “I wouldn’t have made a fool of myself in front of the town if I’d loved someone else.”
“No, I guess you wouldn’t have.”
His rifle in one hand, he held out one arm to her and she snuggled against him, her head against his chest. His heart was beating wildly.
“You owe me a wedding night,” she whispered.
Suddenly, he grabbed her hair, pulled her head back and kissed her deeply, his tongue touching hers.
When Blair turned her body to his and pressed her knee between his legs, he let her go, gently pushing her away.
“Go back inside,” he growled. “I need to keep watch and I have some thinking to do—and I certainly can’t think with you near.”
Reluctantly, she moved away from him.
“Blair,” he said, when she was no longer touching him, “I’m beginning to come up with a plan. I haven’t worked it out yet, but don’t let her”—he nodded toward the cabin—“know that you know she’s lying. Pretend that you believe what she says. I think I can use your anger.”
“I’m glad to be useful,” she muttered before returning to the cabin.
Jealousy was a new emotion to Blair. Never before had she experienced it. She sat in that duty little cabin and listened while Françoise recounted her grand passion with Leander. Part of her wanted so badly to believe Lee, but part of her was sure this awful woman was telling the truth. Blair had to sit on her hands or she would have leapt for the woman’s throat. She did her best to think of other things.
After a while, Blair got herself under control enough to realize that what Françoise was saying was very general.
“And your sister…,” Françoise was saying, “ah, her name is…”
“Charlotte Houston,” Blair said absently, wondering where Lee could have gone on their wedding night if it wasn’t to another woman.
“Yes, Charlotte,” Françoise was saying. “I had to fight Charlotte for many months, but then when she married Taggert…I imagine Lee felt obligated—.”
“He must have discussed her with you at length,” Blair said, suddenly alert.
“When he could get away. The truth is, I am already married, and we thought my husband would never release me, but he will. You see, I found out that I was going to be free on the night he married you.”
“So, he left me to go to you,” Blair said. “Of course, now I’m free and you’re shackled to the post, but I’m sure it’ll work itself out. Excuse me, I think I’ll get a breath of air.”
When Blair walked out of the cabin, she felt as if she’d lost twenty pounds. She felt light and happy and free. No matter what Lee’d said, there’d been some doubt about his relationship with the Frenchwoman. But now, Blair was sure he’d been telling the truth.
As she stood on the porch and breathed deeply of the clean, cool air, an iridescent hummingbird came up to inspect the red insignia on her shoulder. Blair held very still and watched the little bird hovering about her, smiling at it before it realized that she was nothing edible and flew away. Still smiling, she walked down to where Leander hid in the grasses.
She sat down beside him without saying a word, listening to the wind in the aspens overhead.
“She didn’t know Houston’s name,” she said at last, and when he looked at her with curiosity, she continued. “I haven’t always been a part of your life, but Houston has. I don’t imagine anyone you’ve ever known hasn’t heard her name, if for no other reason than for the sheer quantity of letters that Houston wrote you.”
Lee put his arm around her, chuckling and shaking his head. “You don’t believe me, but you do believe her. I guess I’ll have to take whatever I can get.”
She leaned against him and they just sat there together, listening to the wind, not saying a word. Blair thought how close she’d come to missing this moment. If she’d had her way, she’d be in Pennsylvania with Alan right now. Alan who was so small, Alan who wasn’t even a doctor yet, and would probably never be as good as Leander was, Alan who didn’t know which end of a gun to hold, Alan who would have probably gone to the sheriff and would never have rescued his wife on his own.
“Thank you for rescuing me,” she said, and she meant for rescuing her from more than just her kidnappers.
Lee moved to look at her, then pushed her away, as if she had turned to poison. “I want you to go sit by that tree,” he said, and there seemed to be a quiver in his voice. “I want to talk to you, and I can’t do it with you so near me.”
Blair was so flattered that she moved to all fours and put her face in front of his. “Maybe you regret leaving on Monday night,” she said, her lips almost touching his.
Lee drew back from her. “Go!” he ordered, and there was a threat in his voice. “I can’t keep watch and do what I want to do to you at the same time. Now, get over there and be still.”
Blair obeyed him, but his words were sending little chills up and down her spine. In a few hours, Taggert would have the sheriff in the mountains and they’d take the outlaws and Lee could hand over Françoise, and then they’d be alone. She thought of their one and only night together, and when she looked up at him through her lashes, she heard him catch his breath.
She was very pleased when he looked away.
>
“I’ve had time to come up with a plan that just might work,” he said, as he looked out across the forest. “What I want you to do is help the woman to escape. Tonight, I’ll say something that could mean I plan to sneak off with Françoise —maybe we could have an argument. I’m sure you could manage that,” he said, as he turned to look back at her. “What the hell!” he gasped as he looked at her.
“My stocking was loose,” Blair said innocently, as she lifted her slim leg and adjusted the tight black cotton garment, wishing with all her might that she were wearing silk. Maybe there was something to Houston’s wardrobe. No doubt Houston had worn nothing but the sheerest of silks on her honeymoon.
“Blair,” Leander said. “You are trying my patience.”
“Mmmmm,” she said, lowering her leg. “What were you saying about an argument?”
Leander looked away, and Blair saw that his hand was trembling. “I said that I want us to stage an argument, and afterward I want you to let Françoise see you put something in my coffee. Make her think that you’re going to make me sleep through the night rather than go to her.”
“You wouldn’t go to her, would you?”
“I’m saving my energy for later,” he said, in such a way, looking at her through his thick lashes, that Blair’s heart began to pound.
Lee looked back at the forest. “I want her to escape. I can tie the knots so that she can get away, but it will take her a couple of hours to work free. And while she’s working them, I plan to run a little errand.”
“While you’re supposed to be sleeping?”
“As far as I can tell, she’s a cautious woman. She doesn’t take too many chances with her life, so I want her to feel safe, that I’m in a drugged sleep and you want her to escape. She didn’t even try to escape when we were travelling up here,” he said, almost as an afterthought.
“It was too steep. She couldn’t have.”
“Did you try to escape out of that box canyon?”
Blair smiled at him. “How did you know that?”
“A wild guess, based on your recklessness and disbelief that anything can harm you. Now, are you willing? Do you think you can give a good performance?”
Blair grinned at him. “We’re here together now because of my extraordinary acting ability.”
He returned her smile. “Go back in now, and listen to Françoise. Make her think that you believe every word she says. Make her think that you’re ready to murder me.”
Blair stood and looked down at him. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you until I get my wedding night,” she said, then when Lee started to rise, she ran back to the cabin, making sure that she raised her skirts high enough to let him see a great deal.
“You can have her for all I care!” Blair shouted at Lee. “You can spend the rest of your life together and I hope you’re both hanged,” she yelled as she ran from the cabin, leaving Leander and Françoise together.
She kept running up the hill, not pausing to look back until she was out of sight of the cabin. Once she was hidden by the trees, she collapsed on the ground and sat there to catch her breath. Below, she could barely see Lee as he began to look for her.
She smiled as she watched him. She was sure that he’d had no idea just how good an actress she could be and that now he was worried that she’d believed what she’d shouted at him. It had been a good fight, long and loud, with lots of anger. Blair had shouted about Lee’s father, about his leaving her on their wedding night, about having taken her away from Alan, about his sister taking the man she’d loved. That one had thrown him. He’d stood there looking at her as if he half believed her.
Now, Blair was out of breath and she wanted to stay away from the cabin long enough to make it look as if she were truly angry. And, too, she wanted to think about where Lee was going tonight. Was this another one of his secret visits? Was their entire life together going to be full of these secret disappearances of his? Would he ever tell her what he was doing that was so private that even his wife couldn’t be told the truth?
As Blair watched the cabin, and saw Leander looking for her, she decided that there had to be a way to make him trust her. She didn’t want to be so ill informed of his life that some woman who didn’t even know him could make her believe that she knew something that his wife didn’t.
As she was sitting there, lost in thought, she was oblivious to the sounds that were coming from behind her. When she did hear them, she was almost paralyzed, realizing that it was probably Françoise’s gang that had at last found them. Very slowly, she turned to look up the hill.
What she saw more than paralyzed her. Coming down the hill were two big black bears—and they were heading toward her.
No one had ever moved faster. Blair shot up and started running before her feet were firmly on the ground. She was at the cabin before she glanced over her shoulder and saw that the bears weren’t behind her. Cautiously, she stopped and looked around. There were only the sounds of the forest and no sign of the bears. Curious, she walked to a tree at the edge of the clearing and looked back up the hill. Ordinarily, she would have run to safety, but part of her remembered that she was in the midst of a game with Leander and she couldn’t give it away by running into his arms now.
Very slowly, she crept back up the hill, always checking that the way behind her was clear. If the bears were lurking somewhere, she wanted to know about it so she could tell Lee.
About ten feet from where she had been sitting, and only a few yards from the cabin, was a small cave, and from the tracks around it, Blair thought that it must have been used by generations of bears.
“So that’s why the cabin is abandoned,” she murmured and started down the hill. It was nearly sunset and she had to pretend to give Lee the drug that was to make him sleep.
Later, she thought that she’d done it all very well, and she doubted if even Lee had seen her put the headache powder in his coffee—but she’d made sure that Françoise had. For a moment, she’d been tempted to put a little ipecac into his drink after she’d seen Lee looking at Françoise when he thought no one was watching him.
Within minutes after Lee had drunk the coffee that had been heated on the tiny fire he’d made behind the cabin, Lee was yawning and saying that he had to sleep. After several minutes of telling Blair how to guard the prisoner, he went into the other room, and they could hear him fall onto the dirty little cot.
Françoise looked at Blair in such a way that Blair wanted to cut the woman loose and challenge her to a fistfight. But, instead, she checked the woman’s bindings.
“At least, he won’t be spending the night with you,” Blair said. “I’m going to sleep.” She looked the Frenchwoman up and down as she was tied to the pole. “I hope you’re comfortable.”
“And what if I escape? How will you explain that to him?”
“With relish,” Blair answered. “What do I care what you do as long as you’re away from my husband? Besides, I learned a few things about knots in medical school. You won’t get out of those so quickly.”
Blair went into the other room, and she thought how Lee had been right, that Françoise was extraordinarily careful of her life. How many prisoners asked permission before trying to escape?
A quick check of the cot and she saw that Lee had already sneaked out of the cabin through the open window. Blair made a pile of blankets that she hoped would look like a body and went out the window after him.
She walked for several minutes, but she heard nothing. He seemed to have disappeared. She was heading east, the cabin at her back, and, she hoped, toward where Lee was going. Of course, he hadn’t seen fit to tell her any of his plans, but she guessed this might be the direction he’d be taking, for whatever he planned to do. She hid when she heard a sound behind her.
“All right, come out of there.”
She heard the voice, and it sounded like Lee’s, but it wasn’t the voice he used with her. It had a hard, metallic sound to it—and it was accompanied by
the clicking of the hammer of a gun being pulled back. With a sheepish look, Blair stepped out of her hiding place.
Muttering a curse, Lee reholstered his gun. “Why aren’t you at the cabin where I left you? Why aren’t you guarding that woman?”
“I wanted to know where you were going.”
“Not to meet another woman. Now, go back to the cabin. I have some unfinished business to attend to, and I don’t have much time, and I can’t do anything with you around.”
“If you’re not meeting someone else, then where are you going? I thought we were supposed to wait for—.”
“What do I have to do? Tie you up, too?”
“Then I was right. You are somehow involved with those robbers and that woman. Or else you could tell me where you’re going. Oh, Leander, how could you?” She started to turn away, but he caught her arm and spun her around.
“All right, I’ll tell you! The Inexpressible Mine is less than a mile from here, and I plan to sneak down the back side, break into the explosives shed, steal some dynamite and blow the end of that canyon up. I can’t get all of them, but I can trap most of that gang inside the canyon—especially if I use their lady-leader as bait.”
Blair blinked several times, then took a step toward him, her eyes glistening. “It’ll take less time if you just take me with you.” Before he could speak, she continued. “I can help. I can climb. I almost climbed out of the canyon where the robbers held me. Please, please, Leander.” She grabbed him and began kissing his neck and face. “I’ll obey you and never get in your way, and if anybody gets hurt, I’ll thread the needles for you.”
Leander knew he was a beaten man. “I didn’t know when I was well off with a dull, obedient lady like Houston,” he said under his breath, as he started walking at a quick pace.
Blair bit her tongue to keep from telling him that her sister secretly drove a huckster wagon into the mine camps. Instead, she just smiled back at him and began to follow him through the dark forest toward the mine.
Chapter 23