Never Love a Lawman (43 page)

“I’m fine. A bit harried, I expect. I’ve been pressing myself to finish your gown.”

Virginia’s diminutive bow-shaped upper lip was pulled taut by her frown. She ducked suddenly, trying to see under the arm Rachel had spread across the doorway. “Is someone in there?”

Rachel shook her head and hoped it was true. She’d given Foster at least enough time to get to the back of the house. “Come in. Wyatt said he was going to ask you to come by. I hope it was no inconvenience for you.”

“Not at all.” Virginia dusted snow off the hem of her coat before she gave it to Rachel. She held out her bonnet and gloves a moment later. “It’s quiet at the house today, and I couldn’t bear looking at Ezra any longer. Poor thing’s got an eye like a pounded steak and a lump on his head as big as his left ball.” Her hand flew to her mouth. “Forgot where I was.”

Rachel laughed softly, hoping that only she heard the thread of unease running through it. “It’s all right. Why don’t you come into the dining room? It’s where I work.” Rachel tried to gently steer Virginia in that direction, but it was the younger woman’s first visit and she was openly curious. It was inevitable that she’d see the tray in the parlor.

Virginia giggled as her eyes alighted on the bottle of whiskey beside the dainty teacup. “So you enjoy a nip now and again.” She cast a conspirator’s smile at Rachel. “I don’t mind it myself, though Rose is stingy with the drinks. Waters everything down for us girls, insists on it, in fact.”

Rachel actually felt a little giddy. Foster was indeed gone, and Virginia had misinterpreted the evidence that he, or anyone else, had been there. Relief and a need to calm her own nerves prompted her to make Virginia an offer. “Why don’t I get you a glass?”

They were a little worse for wear when Wyatt and Ezra came upon them several hours later. Wyatt looked them over, took note of the mostly empty whiskey bottle between them, and pointed Ezra toward the parlor so they could set down the chemicals and glass plates they’d carried in. He cautioned Ezra, “This is probably something you and I should forget, or at least save until we do something equally foolish.”

Ezra gingerly touched the lump on his head. “I suppose that gives me about a day or so. I should be able to keep it to myself for that long. You?”

“About that. Maybe less with Maddox in town.”

Ezra looked over his shoulder at where the women were sitting at the corner of the dining table, their heads bent close together as they whispered like thieves. “Are you going to tell Mrs. Cooper about Maddox disappearing this afternoon?”

“I don’t know.”

“Probably isn’t that important. He wasn’t gone long enough to set out for the mine. Somebody out that way would have seen him.”

Since Foster shouldn’t have been able to leave the hotel at all without someone noticing, Wyatt wasn’t interested in Ezra’s thoughts on what he might have done. The truth was that no one knew when he left his room, and Wyatt blamed himself for that. He should have made certain that Sir Nigel knew which man was Maddox and which was Dover. If he hadn’t sent Will over early to be sure they were settled in, they wouldn’t have known about the deception.

Foster reappeared at the hotel before they had time to begin a search, and his explanation of a walk around town rang hollow. He further denied there had been intent to deceive and said that after he and Dover saw the rooms, he preferred to be on the lower floor. Randolph Dover registered for both of them but used Foster’s name. The accountant had nothing to say that helped explain his employer’s absence or established the time for it.

“I’m glad Virginia was here,” was all Wyatt said.

The snow dam was cleared two days later, and the train arrived at the station at dusk. Abe Dishman heard the whistle when the engine was still rising out of Brady’s Bend and made certain that Wyatt and Will knew it was on its way. They were at the depot to greet it, looking over every man that alighted, comparing them against the flyers littering the top of Wyatt’s desk.

Foster Maddox was also there, Randolph Dover at his side. He directed some of his employees to the hotel, others to the boardinghouse, and the last of them to rooms for let at the saloon. He lingered in front of the station house after he dismissed his accountant and walked up to Wyatt and Will, tipping his hat politely.

“Sheriff. Deputy. Is there a problem?”

“No problem,” Wyatt said.

“Then you greet every train.”

“It’s a friendly town.”

“My lawyer and I will be paying a call on Rachel tomorrow. I want to see the documents that give her possession of the spur. You will want to make certain she has them. Delays are pointless.” A glimmer of a smile touched his mouth. “Still a friendly town, Sheriff?”

Wyatt watched him go, but it was Will who spoke. “You sure we got no reason to lock him up?”

Grunting softly, Wyatt clapped Will on the back. “C’mon. I have a few stops to make on my way home.”

Rachel spread remnants of black velvet and damask across the parlor window and secured the ends so that no light came through. “It’s dark outside,” she said. “I don’t understand the point of a darkroom at night.”

“Humor me.”

If he’d asked her to trust him, she might have pressed her point a little harder, but the idea that he just wanted to be humored left her without resources to deny him. “I thought we needed more light to make a good photograph.”

“That’s why I’m putting all the lamps in the kitchen.” He picked up the one he usually read by and another on the mantel and headed out.

Rachel finished tacking the velvet, then began working on the drape she’d quickly made to hang over the entrance to the parlor from the foyer. Wyatt returned in time to help her hang it. She rose on tiptoe, holding the heavy fabric as best she could while he fastened it to the lintel. When he was done, she stood down.

“Should I take the last lamp?” she asked.

“No, I still need to mix the chemicals and prepare the paper and plates. I have to see to do that.”

Rachel looked at the pans on the tables, each one of them partially filled with water. Bottles of silver chloride, silver nitrate, and pyrogallic acid stood nearby. “What should I do?”

“You can set up the drying rack. That’s it against the wall. I’m going to move the camera and tripod into the kitchen.”

Rachel listened to him moving things around in the kitchen while she tinkered with the rack. She finally set it down beside the table where the bottles rested, but not so near the stove that heat would not permit the colloid solution to set; then she went to see what Wyatt had done in the kitchen.

“Surely there must be a better way,” she said, examining the lamps he’d set out around the room.

“Flash powder. That’s magnesium powder and potassium chlorate, but I don’t know the proportions, and I don’t think I want to experiment with them tonight.”

Rachel was quite sure she didn’t. “Your equipment is rather old. Will it work?”

“I don’t see why not. The leather bellows are still supple, and the lens isn’t scratched. The camera uses the wet-plate process, and that still makes a good photograph. That’s all I need.” He looked around the kitchen. “And better light.”

Rachel made her own survey. “What about a mirror to reflect what we have? There’s one above the mantel and another in my workroom.”

Wyatt caught her by the shoulders and kissed her hard. She was still wavering on her feet when he disappeared.

It took them half an hour to set the mirrors where they would do the most good, and then ten more minutes to redistribute the lamps. Wyatt had to adjust the dampers on the stove to reduce the heat in the room.

“I think we’re ready.” He adjusted the tripod one more time, lowering the camera another inch. The lens was aimed at the tabletop. “If this doesn’t work tonight, I can try again in the morning. I just don’t know if there will be enough time. Each one of these plates will take between twenty and thirty minutes. I sent word to Foster at the hotel that we’d meet him at our lawyer’s office. If we’re late, I don’t know that he’ll wait around.”

“If we’re late, Wyatt, he can’t get in.”

“True.”

Rachel thought she saw a smile edging his mouth. “You’re taking him seriously, aren’t you?”

He straightened and turned to her, and there was no hint that he’d ever been amused. His features were sharply defined by their gravity. “Don’t ever doubt it,” he said. “Even if I didn’t trust myself to recognize him for the kind of man he is, I trust you.”

She nodded faintly, her eyes straying to the documents spread out across the table. “He’s good at negotiation,” she said. “Better, some would say, than his grandfather. It’s easy to forget that because he was only ever a bully with me.”

“Have you wondered why?”

“Because I’m a woman,” she said, surprised that he didn’t understand. “A whore, according to him.”

“Maybe,” said Wyatt. “And maybe it’s because he’s never been able to negotiate a satisfactory arrangement with you. I imagine he didn’t approach you with threats at the beginning.”

It was so long ago, Rachel could barely remember. “I don’t suppose he did, no.” She frowned, thinking. “He might have asked me to accompany him to the theater. I can’t recall now. Whatever it was, I had to honor a commitment I’d made with Mr. Maddox. I’m sure I explained that. Regardless, the idea that Foster wanted me to go anywhere with him made no sense. He’s never liked me, Wyatt, and his invitation would have been in defiance of his mother.”

“How do you know?”

“Cordelia disapproved of me. It was not a secret. As for Foster, he was always watching.” She didn’t miss the arch of Wyatt’s eyebrow. “Do you think I don’t know that you watched me, too? It was different. I didn’t know quite what to make of you, or your interest, and certainly your attention made me uncomfortable, but I truly never had the sense that you meant me harm. I know I swung the bucket at your head and might have stabbed you with my shears, but what I did was because of Foster Maddox, not because of you.” She rubbed the back of her neck, massaging away the tight cords of tension. “Perhaps you’re right, and I should have given in to him.”

Wyatt took her firmly by the arms. “I never said that you should have given in, Rachel. Is that what you heard?”

She lowered her hand, almost crying with relief when he began to knead her shoulders and slowly work his fingers toward the base of her neck. “I don’t know,” she said, weary. “I want it to be done. I want it as much as I’ve ever wanted anything.”

He pulled her into an embrace and ran his hands up and down her back until he felt her relax against him. “The kind of man that Foster is,” said Wyatt, “doesn’t make him evil. Pathetic, perhaps, even petulant, certainly cunning, but not evil. To view him through that lens gives him power that he’s never earned and doesn’t deserve. It makes opposing him more difficult, not less, because how does any one of us face evil?”

“Besides knocking it down and giving it twenty-two stitches, you mean.”

He chuckled. “Besides that.”

Closing her eyes, Rachel breathed in Wyatt’s scent. She clasped her hands behind his back and rubbed her cheek against his shoulder. “I don’t know,” she said softly. “In the end, I ran away.”

Wyatt’s law office was crowded. Sam Walker carried chairs up from the land office to accommodate Foster’s entourage. Wyatt and Rachel had asked only Ted Easter to join them. As the mayor of Reidsville, he could represent the town’s interest and provide witness to the proceedings. He also acted as the scribe because Wyatt didn’t trust that Foster’s recollection of the meeting would be the same as his own.

Foster Maddox brought four men with him. His accountant sat on his right with a stack of squared-off ledgers in front of him. On Randolph Dover’s right was Daniel Seward, the surveyor and engineer who knew all the reasons that dynamite shouldn’t have been used at the blocked pass and had been willing to abandon his superior judgment in favor of Foster’s interests. Davis Stuart and George Maxwell were both attorneys, and they huddled together at the foot of the table, comparing notes that they shared by holding up leather portfolios so no one else could see.

Wyatt glanced sideways at Rachel. Her desire to appear indifferent was already taking a toll on her. He suspected that Foster would see that soon enough and use it to his advantage. He dropped his hand under the table and found Rachel’s thigh. At the first touch, her lips parted a fraction to take in a breath, and when his fingers tripped lightly up to her hip, her mouth revealed a sliver of a smile. Her own hands were clasped together on the tabletop, and Wyatt watched as her fingertips went from bloodless to pink.

He slid his palm over her thigh so that it came to rest in her lap. She’d chosen to wear one of her most tailored gowns this morning and the dark ruby fabric was stretched so tautly that there was no cradle for his hand. He had to be satisfied that she would remember the one she’d made for him earlier, when they were still lying in bed and awake only in the sense that they’d ceased to dream.

“Shall we begin?” Foster asked, raising one eyebrow in the direction of Stuart and Maxwell. When they set their notes down, he turned his attention to Rachel. “I’d like to hear why you think my grandfather, from among all of his many holdings, separated the spur from Denver to Reidsville so that he could place it in your hands.”

“I couldn’t possibly speak for the workings of Mr. Maddox’s mind.”

“Come. You must have wondered. What did you conclude?”

Wyatt interrupted. “I don’t see how that’s relevant. From the nature of your question, one can infer that you are not challenging that Mr. Clinton Maddox did indeed intend for Rachel to take possession of the Calico Spur.”

Davis Stuart tapped the nib of his pen against his papers. He had a broad face with craggy features that were only moderately softened by a full wiry beard. “The intent of the question is to establish the state of Clinton Maddox’s mind. The fact that he did it doesn’t mean that it was either right or reasonable.”

Rachel said quietly, “I imagine he did it because he wanted to ensure that I had a means of income. When my father died, Mr. Maddox made certain that my mother had a way to care for herself. He would have given her an allowance for the rest of her life if she would have taken it, but that wasn’t her way. She accepted a position in his home instead and would have remained there if my sister hadn’t left.”