Beloved Outcast (19 page)

“What the devil are you talking about?”

“Well, after what we did…” She found she could no longer meet Logan’s glare. “I mean, I’m not exactly the same person Mr. Pritchert hired to tutor his employer’s ward, am I?”

Victoria took a deep breath and raced onward with her jumbled thoughts. “I’m sure that part of the reason he secured my services was because of his acquaintance with my father and the reputation of our family. He chose to ignore an unfortunate rumor being circulated about me, because he assumed 1 would be a proper influence on the young woman he represented. I fear I’m no longer worthy of his trust and, in all good conscience, I should inform him of that fact.”

“Don’t be a fool, Victoria. Tell no one about what happened at the hot pools.”

“But, surely—”

“I mean it. You’ll bring nothing but heartache on yourself if you do. You’re the same woman you were before I lost control and took things further than I had any right or intention to do.”

“I…I was the one who permitted the liberties,” she reminded him gently. “I have to accept responsibility for my actions.” Her gaze dropped to the pouch Logan had failed to accept. “Please take this.”

“Under one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“Promise you’ll tell no one about what transpired between us these past two weeks.”

Understanding made her stomach twist. “I see, you’re afraid I’ll mention you by name and the authorities will discover you weren’t killed at the fort.”

“Honey, at this point there’s not a damned thing to be gained by talking to you.” He snatched the gold from her in clear exasperation. “Just promise that you’ll keep your guilty conscience to yourself for the time being. There’s no need to ride into town with a scarlet
A
embroidered on your collar.”

She took exception to his droll tone. Again she wondered how he could jest at a time like this, a time when her heart was in peril of crumbling.

“I had planned on being discreet and only speaking of the matter with Mr. Pritchert.”

Logan thrust his bearded face into hers. “You won’t tell Mart—Mr. Pritchert—a damned thing about us. Is that clear?”

“I’m not certain I care for your tone, Logan. Besides, what difference could it possibly make to you? You’ll be miles away, and I’ve already told you I won’t identify you by name.”

“Victoria, I want your promise, and I want it now.”

She stared at him in mounting fury. What gave him the mistaken notion that he had any authority over how she conducted her life? Theirs was clearly a fleeting association, doomed by events and circumstance to end when she got back into the wagon and drove her team into town.

And yet. Clearly, this matter meant a great deal to Logan. Was his demand for silence his small way of attempting
to look after her future, as she was trying to look after his? The possibility touched her, and her anger softened.

“All right, Logan,” she finally conceded. “I shall say nothing to Mr. Pritchert.”

The taut lines of his body relaxed perceptibly.

“See that you don’t change your mind.”

Suddenly self-conscious again, Victoria stepped back. This really was goodbye. She could think of no other reason to detain him. She’d given him her best counsel, eighty dollars in gold coins, and her promise to keep their illicit liaison a secret. Any business between them was well and truly completed.

“Goodbye, Victoria.”

Hot tears rose. She tried to blink them away, but wasn’t wholly successful.

He turned. Without realizing that she was going to do so, she reached out and grasped his arm. “Don’t go yet. I—I have something else for you.”

If she hadn’t known better, she would have thought she saw tenderness shining from Logan’s gaze.

“I don’t need any more money.”

“It’s not that. Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

And then she was in the wagon again, foraging through her beloved collection of books, seeking one special volume. When she found what she was searching for, she dashed outside, fearful that Logan might already be gone.

He was, however, exactly where she’d left him.

Her hands trembled as she presented him with a slim leatherbound book. “I want you to have this.”

Demonstrating none of the reservations he’d shown about accepting the gold coins, Logan immediately reached for the gift.

“What is it?”

“A book.”

He rolled his eyes. “I can see that.”

“Well, now that I know you can read, I want to give it to you. It’s a volume of poetry by Keats. And…it’s very special.”

Again something akin to tenderness shone from Logan’s gaze. “I’ll treasure it.”

“Whenever you read it—“ her voice broke, and she took a deep breath “—I hope you’ll remember me.”

“Oh, hell.”

His expletive took her aback.

“Don’t you want to remember me?”

“Honey, there’s no way on this good earth that I could ever forget you. You’re getting worked up over nothing. I promise, this isn’t goodbye.”

She took a fierce swipe at her burning eyes. “But this must be our final farewell. It would be much too dangerous for you to show your face in Trinity Falls. People there must know you. If the military finds out you’re still alive, they’ll finish the task of killing you.”

He stared deeply into her eyes; she had the feeling he was branding her in his memory. “Stubborn.”

“What?”

“You might call it strength of character or determination, honey. But the truth is, you’re the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met.”

“What does
that
have to do with anything?”

“Only everything.” He slipped the slim volume she’d given him into his shirt. “Goodbye for now, Victoria.”

She couldn’t call him back a third time. Yet she couldn’t let him walk out of her life without sharing her deepest feelings. Within her heart, she knew that, despite his reassurances to the contrary, she would never see him again.

“I love you, Logan Youngblood.”

Her soft declaration was made to his broad back. He stood stock-still, then turned slowly. His bearded features held a look of wary optimism. “Promise you’ll remember those words the next time you see me.”

She refused to cry, but the emotions churning inside her were so powerful she couldn’t speak. She nodded instead.

Take me in your arms, Logan. Kiss me goodbye.

But he didn’t.

He just turned again and walked out of her life.

As she watched him through the watery mist of her tears, it was as if he were returning to the otherworldly fog he’d stepped through the morning after the storm. Instinctively she moved toward him, but then she stopped. They’d said their goodbyes.

It was finished.

V
ictoria inspected her image in the hotel room’s cheval mirror. She saw a serious-faced woman with sunburned skin wearing a dark plaid jacket over a white blouse tucked into a gray skirt.

She ran her fingertips across the dove-gray pleats, smoothing away any wrinkles the hotel laundry might have left unattended. It was only her nervousness, she told herself, that compelled her to reexamine her appearance every few minutes.

She continued to study her reflection, fussing with the lapels of the fitted jacket and adjusting her ruffled cravat. The feeling grew that she was gazing at a stranger. Could the outwardly composed woman in the mirror really be her?

She’d fashioned her hair in a neat twist, and she wore a small black straw hat perched above it. Hopefully, the cameo brooch pinned to the ruffles at her throat softened her outfit’s stark simplicity. She didn’t want to appear too severe for her interview with her new employer.

She drew a calming breath, but the constraining tightness of her corset made it difficult to breath deeply. After months of traipsing across the Western trail, it was difficult to reaccustom herself to wearing the rigid garment. But then, it also seemed unnatural to be surrounded by polished paneled walls, instead of gently swaying lodgepole pines, and to have a white plaster ceiling overhead instead of wide-open blue skies. Instead of the fresh smells of wild
mint and evergreen, she detected the subtle scent of cottonseed furniture polish and traces of kerosene oil.

Victoria turned from the mirror. The hotel suite Martin Pritchert had shown her to the night before was as elegantly appointed as any Boston drawing room. Clearly, the Prairie Rose Hotel was an establishment of superior quality. The Oriental rugs, maroon velvet draperies and plushly padded settee and armchairs attested to that.

She glanced at the high poster bed. To stretch out between crisp cotton sheets covering a downy soft mattress had seemed the height of luxury. She couldn’t remember when she’d enjoyed an evening’s sleep more. Except when she’d laid upon the hard ground, with Logan Youngblood’s powerful arms enveloping her.

That errant thought brought with it a flash of pain.
You aren’t going to think about Logan.
She steeled herself against the sense of bereavement she experienced when she remembered their abrupt parting. Everything had happened for the best. There was no way she and a man like Logan Youngblood could have had any future together. They were as different as fire and ice.

She had no illusions about which of them was the source of the flame and which of them had been reduced to an unseemly puddle during the elemental contest that had raged between them.

Logan had thawed every vestige of her frozen innocence, until all that remained was the shameless longing to again warm herself in the blaze of his shattering passion.

The clock on the mantel chimed. Victoria started. Martin Pritchert would be arriving any moment to take her to his employer’s office. She reflected upon how, if they knew what had happened to her on the trail, neither Martin Pritchert nor the man he worked for would deem her fit to instruct their charge. Her stomach clenched. Despite the censure that had been heaped upon her when Horace Threadgill was discovered in her bedchamber, Victoria wasn’t used to feeling unworthy.

She’d heeded Logan’s counsel, though, and not disclosed to Mr. Pritchert anything about Logan’s companionship during the past two weeks. Her brow knit. It would have been excruciatingly humiliating to introduce such an unseemly topic with the amiable man and his wife while they supped last night in the hotel restaurant. Yet, in the face of his kindness, she felt like a fraud. Surely, after her wanton behavior with Logan, she had forfeited the right to mingle with chaste people.

Despair seemed to permeate the very air she breathed. She missed Logan so terribly! It was as if a part of her had been torn asunder when he disappeared into the forest. She had the dismal feeling that she’d made a ghastly mistake. She should have followed Logan to the ends of the earth and endured a life of uncertainty and hardship rather than lose the man she loved.

He never said he loved you…

There was that, she mused dejectedly. If only she could have been a different sort of woman. If only she could have been as bold and reckless as Logan had called her. But the truth was, she was quite cowardly when it came to taking risks. Until this point in her life, the most dangerous thing she’d ever done was to come west, and hundreds of people did that every week.

An awful feeling of desolation continued to weigh down her spirits. Her mind knew she’d made the right choice. But her heart was a hollow shell of quiet despair. If she could have gone back and changed the past, she would have. Even if the wrong choice could never provide lasting happiness, it would have given her more time with Logan.

A knock sounded at the door. Victoria immediately opened it. Martin Pritchert, looking slightly rumpled and pudgy in a dark blue suit, greeted her with a friendly smile on his ruddy face. He’d applied a liberal amount of tonic to his thick, frizzy gray hair. Both it and the great whiskers framing his pink jowls were meticulously combed.

The man’s blue eyes sparkled with vitality and good humor. “Well, now, I see you’re ready for your appointment, Miss Amory.”

“Yes, I am.”

There was no reason for Mr. Pritchert’s jovial presence to make her feel shy, yet Victoria found herself struggling to subdue a bout of timidity. She wondered if her time alone in the wilderness had withered her ability to engage in small talk. Then she remembered her final day with Logan Youngblood. She hadn’t had any difficulty thinking of things to say to him. If anything, her tongue had run away with her, and she’d uttered several remarks that should have gone unspoken.

I love you…

“Then I suggest we be on our way. My employer isn’t a man who appreciates being kept waiting.”

“Of course.” Victoria gathered her drawstring purse from the brilliantly polished mahogany surface of a nearby table. “Will I require a coat?”

Mr. Pritchert shook his head. “It’s a fine day. The wind’s not blowing, and the streets are dry.”

Victoria allowed him to take her arm as they progressed down the hotel corridor. “Do you get much rain here?”

“Not as much as in the mountains,” her companion observed cheerfully. “How was breakfast this morning? Did you get plenty to eat?”

“It was a feast.” Victoria recalled the heavily laden tray delivered to her room. Ordinarily, she would have enjoyed the eggs, biscuits and ham. This morning, however, her appetite had been nonexistent. She wondered what Logan would have made of that unlikely circumstance. “It was considerate of you to have it sent to my chamber, but I wouldn’t have minded eating in the hotel dining room.”

They came to a wide oval staircase. Mr. Pritchert patted her arm. “Trinity Falls is a town overflowing with miners, Miss Amory. It wouldn’t do for you to go about on your own. There are rough and wild men roaming the streets.”

She’d just spent two weeks with her very own rough and wild man, Victoria reflected. How she ached to hear his voice and feel his arms around her. She even missed his provocative comments.

“Surely a woman can eat unaccosted in the hotel,” she said, forcing her thoughts to the conversation at hand.

“A lone woman, especially one as lovely as you, Miss Amory, if you’ll allow me to say so, must be escorted at all times. Remember, you’re no longer in Boston.”

As they left the hotel and stepped onto the boardwalk, Victoria concurred with Mr. Pritchert’s statement. This definitely wasn’t Boston. A wide dirt road ran through the middle of town. Upon its dusty, rutted surface rolled wagons drawn by teams of six and eight. A variety of oxen, mules and horses did the pulling. There were several carriages, and dozens of men on horseback riding to and fro. Dust boiled up in the wake of their swift passage.

Pedestrians in the form of roughly dressed men filled the sidewalks. Hundreds of them, some tall, some slight, some dressed in fine clothing, most in baggy trousers and plaid shirts, milled about the street. They were going into and coming out of saloons, hailing each other in loud voices, laughing, swearing, singing, shouting…. It was absolute mayhem.

Here and there, she did notice an occasional skirt passing among the male population. She noticed, also, that the scant number of women were accompanied by masculine escorts.

Her most vivid impression of the place was that of unrestrained noise. The constant onslaught of sound seemed especially jarring after her time in the nearly silent mountains. Here on this Western street, harness leather jingled, men whistled, and she was certain she detected the jaunty rhythms of at least three different pianos being played.

Two gunshots were fired in rapid succession. Victoria jumped.

“Don’t be alarmed, Miss Amory. Gunfire in town rarely indicates serious trouble. It was probably just a minor skirmish over a card game.”

Victoria swallowed. “Is it always like this?”

“Today might be busier than usual. Several supply wagons arrived yesterday, and there was news of a new gold strike.” Mr. Pritchert took a firmer grip on her arm. “The Western Banks United building is across the street. When I say, ‘Go,’ I want you to run for it, and don’t stop until we get to the other side.”

Victoria nodded, trying to spot a break in the almost endless stream of traffic flowing in front of them.

“I must say, Miss Amory, I’m very impressed that you traveled through the mountains without mishap and made it safely to town. You’re a remarkable woman.”

Since there was no way she could have made the trip without Logan’s help, Victoria felt guilty about accepting the falsely inspired praise. “It was certainly fortuitous that you happened to be out on the road yesterday.”

Had she not met the man, it definitely would have been a challenge to search through town at dusk to find him. She was grateful to have been spared that inconvenience. During the final leg of her ride into town, she had not encountered another traveler on the roadway. Though there had been that lone rider streaking past her as twilight hovered on the horizon. It had surprised her that the man didn’t stop his galloping mount to exchange a word with her on the lonely road.

Something about the rider’s bearing had reminded her of Logan, which illustrated how deeply the man had infiltrated her thoughts. Last night, when she and Mr. Pritchert dined in the hotel dining room with his wife, Victoria had thought she heard the husky timbre of Logan’s deep voice several times. On three occasions, she’d glimpsed broadshouldered men with dark hair who made her turn and try to look into their faces, thinking she would see Logan’s beloved countenance.

Foolish woman, she thought. Yet she was unable to keep from scanning the crowd of moving men for the heartstoppingly familiar sight of Logan Youngblood’s bold figure. Nor did it help to remind herself that he was miles from Trinity Falls. A part of her wanted to believe, against all reason, that he might have decided to see her one more time before leaving the area.

Foolish woman, indeed.

“There it is! Go!”

It took a second for Mr. Pritchert’s words to make sense. Then she was galloping across the wide street, holding on to her hat with one hand and being pulled along by the other.

“Whoa!” A rider drew back on the reins, and his horse pawed the sky.

Victoria looked over her shoulder. The horseman had his mount under control, but a wagon drawn by a team of black mules was bearing down on her and Mr. Pritchert. She surged forward, which was no easy feat, considering the constraints of her corset.

They reached the boardwalk together, both of them flushed and panting.

“My goodness, do you go through that every time you want to cross the street?” she gasped, holding her hand over her heart.

“It does enliven one’s senses, doesn’t it?” Mr. Pritchert asked, his eyes twinkling with irrepressible humor.

“Good grief, if we’d been a minute slower, that wagon would have run us down.”

“In a second,” Pritchert agreed cheerfully.

Victoria surprised herself by laughing at the man’s unfailing goodwill.

“Is that why you hired me, because I looked like a fast runner?”

Before Mr. Pritchert could respond, one of the men jamming the crowded sidewalk evidently misjudged the space needed to weave through the milling masses and bumped into Victoria. It was only a glancing blow, yet it was delivered with sufficient force to send her flying toward Mr.
Pritchert. Startled by the unexpected impact, she braced herself against the older man’s flabby chest.

Before she could disentangle herself, two beefy paws closed around her arms and set her back on her feet. “I’m sorry, miss. I didn’t see you standing there.”

Victoria pushed back the straw hat that had fallen over her eyes. Before her stood a huge, grizzled man twisting a battered, dirt-stained hat between his broad hands. His deeply set brown eyes were filled with contrition, and he resembled nothing so much as a hulking Saint Bernard that had offended its master and sought forgiveness.

Someone else rushed by, jostling Victoria’s other shoulder. She glanced around the chaotic melee of moving men. With herself, Mr. Pritchert and this massive stranger blocking a significant portion of the roughly planked walkway, it felt as if they were a bit of flotsam caught in a surging river.

“Watch what you’re doing!” the giant yelled after the man who’d brushed too closely to them, before returning his attention to Victoria. “Are you all right, miss?”

“I—I’m fine,” she said, a bit breathlessly.

“Here, then, stand clear!” came Goliath’s mighty roar.

Almost magically, a pocket of space cleared around them.

Victoria smiled at the man. “Thank you, sir.”

“Hell.” A look of chagrin swept his rough features, turning his swarthy completion crimson. “Pardon my language, miss. I’m right sorry about that. Nobody calls me sir, though. My name’s Newt. Newt Timothy White.”

“Well, Newt,” she said, deciding to forgo formalities and address him by his Christian name, “no harm was done. As you can see, I’m perfectly fine.”