The Lady and the Robber Baron Read online

  He stepped off the ladder and knelt beside her. Her skin was still warm, but of course it would be. It had only been a matter of minutes.

  “Jennie…”

  He pressed his fingers against the artery in her neck. Her skin was damp, her hair wet and plastered against the side of her face. At first he felt nothing. His heart thundered in his chest. He moved his fingers and dug them in deeper. A tiny pulse felt like a brush moving under her skin, caressing his fingers briefly and receding, briefly and receding. Relief and exultation swelled up in him. His fingers were reluctant to let go of the reassuring feel of her pulse.

  “She’s alive!” he croaked. He felt so weak he had to sit down. “She’s alive.”

  Overhead, ballerinas murmured and scuffed their feet. The sounds seemed amplified. Every movement echoed in the cavernous pit beneath the stage.

  He was reluctant to move her. He might lift her only to discover that her neck was broken, or her back.

  “Jennie…”

  He leaned close to her. “Jennie.”

  Her eyelids fluttered.

  “I’m going to carry you up a ladder. Can you move your legs, your head?”

  Jennie pulled her legs toward her. “Ohhh! My foot.”

  He picked her up and waited for her to relax in his arms. She gritted her teeth, covered her face with her hands, shuddered once, and finally relaxed against him.

  Slowly, carefully, he started up the ladder. She winced, but that was all. At last he reached the top. Steve was waiting and took Jennie as Chane maneuvered himself off the ladder and onto one of the cross beams.

  “Her foot’s broken,” Dr. Campbell said, snapping his bag open.

  “How badly?”

  Campbell shook his head and pulled on his gray goatee. “She won’t be dancing for a while. Maybe never.”

  “That’s all? Just her foot?”

  “I doubt she’ll think it insignificant.” He patted his goatee. “She’ll have some nasty bruises as well.”

  Chane waited outside while Campbell set the foot and bandaged it. Jennie cried out once, and he could hear her panting to keep from doing it again. Sweat broke out on his forehead. Chane wanted to go in there and toss that doctor out a window, but he restrained himself with difficulty. When the doctor finally came out, made his report, and left, Chane wiped his face again, eased the door open, and walked into Jennie’s bedroom.

  At the sound of his shoes crossing the carpet, she opened her eyes. “Can you think of anything more worthless than a ballerina with a broken foot?” she asked, her eyes bleak.

  The only thing that came to mind was himself without her. The thought that he was still so weak-minded sickened him. Thank God he was almost ready to leave for Colorado.

  Chane got up earlier every day, but he seemed to be falling further behind. The day before he was supposed to leave, Tom Wilcox walked in at eight o’clock in the morning and handed him a telegram from Tom’s contact in Denver.

  LEGISLATURE PASSED LAW YESTERDAY REQUIRING THAT ANY RAILROAD THROUGH STATE HAS TO BE BUILT BY RESIDENTS OF COLORADO STOP.

  “Damn!” Chane crumpled the telegram and tossed it into the trash. Over the past weeks, he had purchased tons of supplies—food and bedding for a couple thousand men, spikes, hammers, axes, carts, pulleys, dynamite, and hydraulic jackhammers, which might or might not work, since they’d just come on the market. All month he’d worked feverishly, overseeing the moving of this equipment from the warehouse to the train depot.

  He wasn’t about to give up now, just because some hick legislature had changed a law. He retrieved the wire, brought it to Steve’s office, and tossed it on his desk. Steve looked up from the brief he was writing.

  “Bad news,” Chane said.

  Steve read it and frowned. “Laurey isn’t a resident, either,” he said.

  “But Gould is. He can front for both of them.”

  “So what now?”

  “I need a favor.”

  Steve realized what Chane was going to ask him. The blood drained from his face. “No trains. I won’t ride anymore trains.”

  “It’s our only hope. If you don’t go and break things loose, I might as well kiss all the money we’ve spent on this venture good-bye.”

  Steve groaned. He knew Chane had sunk almost a million dollars of his grandfather’s money into the purchases to begin the railroad. Without the railroad, he’d be stuck with that stuff indefinitely.

  Jennifer called home every day, but Peter still had not returned. This time Augustine answered the telephone. Her timorous voice on the end of the line made Jennifer homesick.

  “Augustine? It’s me, Jennifer.”

  “Madame!”

  “Have you heard from Peter?”

  “No, madame.”

  “Did I get any mail?”

  “Oh, yes, madame. A letter from London.”

  Jennifer closed her eyes. It had come. She had waited all this time. “Could you send someone over with it?”

  The messenger arrived an hour later. Jennifer tore the letter open and read it.

  Dear Miss Van Vleet,

  As director of the Royal Ballet of London it is my extreme pleasure to tell you that we are most thrilled by the opportunity presented by your agent. We therefore invite you to come to London and dance the lead in any of a number of ballets upon which we can agree. We look forward to hearing from you as to your expected arrival date and will wait for your reply. We are most anxious to accommodate a ballerina of your range and power.

  Respectfully yours,

  Wollencott Edwards

  Jennifer crumpled the letter and sank back against her pillows. She had waited all her life for this letter, and now it had come. Too late. She might never dance again. No one knew how a broken foot would mend, or if it would mend at all.

  She turned over and stared at the pattern on the wallpaper, surprised that she felt no bitterness. None at Chane, and none about this terrible loss. A strange feeling of gratitude welled up from deep inside her. She was being punished exactly as she deserved.

  A week went by with agonizing slowness. Chane’s departure was delayed by one problem, then another. At first Jennifer had been resigned to letting him go without her. But slowly, as she lay in bed, struggling against the fairly constant pain and the ever-present boredom, she could feel her life coming into clearer focus.

  One of the first things she realized was that she truly loved Chane. She had expected her love to die along with his, but it hadn’t. The more he avoided her and tried to ignore her, the greater her hunger for his attention became.

  Dr. Campbell came every day to check on her progress. During his Tuesday visit she learned that Chane was leaving the next day. After Campbell left, Jennie asked Mrs. Lillian to send one of the lady’s maids in to help her change. Marianne Kelly washed her hair and dried it, then Jennifer changed into a prettier nightgown and rubbed a little color into her pale cheeks. When she looked as good as she felt she could, she asked Mrs. Lillian to send for Chane.

  Then she hobbled into the big four-poster bed that, according to Mrs. L., had been brought over from England for Chane’s great-grandmother. The bed was so big, and Jennie so slim, that she seemed to disappear into the folds of the feather mattress. She picked up her hand mirror and gazed into it. Her eyes were bigger and darker than she’d ever seen them. With her silvery blond hair framing her face in light and her features scrubbed clean, she looked twelve years old. Maybe that would soften Chane’s hard heart, she thought. Her own ached dully. She had lost too much in the last year—her parents, her baby, her brother, her dancing, and now she was about to lose her husband, again.

  Chane tapped lightly on the door.

  “Come in.”

  He walked in and looked about the room as if he’d never seen it before. He looked everywhere except into her eyes. Finally, he cleared his throat and glanced at her. “So…how long does he expect you to be laid up?” he asked.

  “Three or four months.”

&n
bsp; “Damned shame.”

  “You’re going, aren’t you?”

  “Tomorrow, yes.”

  “Is Steve going?”

  “He’s gone.” He told her briefly about the residency problem. “Steve will try to find a loophole that will allow us to build through Colorado. If not, we’ll have to jump off from Topeka and build through the plains to the desert. It won’t be pleasant, but it can be done.”

  “Please sit down,” she said, motioning to one of the chairs. “I need to talk to you.”

  Chane carried an armchair from beside the fire, sat down and stretched his legs out in front of him, all without looking at her again.

  “As you know,” she began hesitantly, “I’ve had a lot of time to think lately.”

  Chane nodded.

  “I realized that part of the reason I’ve worked so hard at being a ballerina is that it’s kept me from having to deal with my difficult family. It also saved me from marriage, until recently. It’s done everything I wanted it to do and more. Well, that’s gone now, and it may never come back. Dr. Campbell says I may never dance again. I won’t know for months.”

  Chane waited in silence. Jennie couldn’t help but notice how his dark hair curled around his left ear, and how a shadow of beard darkened his cheeks.

  “I know you don’t want to hear this, but I’ve discovered I love you in a way I never thought I could love any man—totally and all-consumingly. I suppose it’s…too late, but my feelings are real, and overwhelming to me.”

  “You suppose it’s too late?” he asked incredulously, his voice low and thick with pain.

  “I think I could earn your trust again.”

  “No,” he said with finality. “It won’t work.” His profile looked grim and set against her. The brick wall he’d built between them was solidly in place. He thought himself safe behind it.

  She refused to let that stop her. “I want to go with you.”

  “Building a railroad is not like going on tour with a ballet company.”

  Jennifer lifted her chin. “I’m your wife. I want to go with you.”

  “That’s because you don’t know how boring it is riding the rails behind a crew that only moves a few feet a day. You’ll be better off in New York near a doctor.”

  “You loved me once. Maybe you can again.”

  “This is no picnic we’re going on. It’s either boring or dangerous,” he continued, as if he hadn’t heard her. “We’ll be doing most of the work in the winter. It’s bitter cold,” he said, looking into her eyes for the first time. “It’s a punishing sort of cold, and very little else to do but suffer through it.”

  The look in his eyes told her he was talking about the cold that now filled his heart. “I don’t care,” she whispered, a lump rising in her throat.

  “You say that now.”

  “I promise you I will die before I complain.”

  “Jennie, it won’t work—”

  “I think my life is in danger.” She ignored the disbelief in his eyes and plunged ahead. “First I was being followed. Then someone tried to kill me. You promised to take care of me. Was that just talk?” she asked bitterly.

  Chane scowled, but she sensed weakening and plunged ahead.

  “I’ll need a doctor, though,” she said.

  Chane sighed as if his burdens were almost unbearable. “I’m taking Campbell anyway,” he admitted grudgingly. “With three thousand men, accidents happen.”

  “I won’t be any trouble. I promise.”

  “You won’t be anything but trouble,” he said grimly.

  That hurt, but it didn’t matter. If she didn’t go, she had no chance at all. Even if she did go, she might have no chance, but she wouldn’t know until she tried. And she loved him too much to give up now.

  His teeth clamped together, and muscles bunched in his lean cheeks. “All right. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Chane left, and Jennifer telephoned Augustine.

  “We miss you, madame.”

  “I miss you, too, Mamitchka.” Jennifer paused. “I’m going away for a while. Can you pack all of my warmest clothes? I’ll have a man pick them up. Will you call me and let me know when they’ll be ready?”

  “Oui, madame. May we ask where you will be going?”

  “Colorado.”

  “Where is that?”

  “It’s out West.”

  “Oh, no.”

  Jennifer knew that Augustine had heard a great many bad things about life in the West. She was convinced it was inhabited by cold-blooded killers, thieves, and bloodthirsty Indians.

  “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me. I’m going with a very large party. I’ll be well-protected.”

  “Should we close the house, madame?”

  “No, Peter may be back any day. And where would you go?”

  “With you, madame.”

  “All of you?”

  “Oui.”

  Jennifer had to decline, knowing it would push Chane’s patience to the breaking point. Next, she called her father’s attorney, Ward Berringer, and told him that she was leaving.

  “How long do you expect to be gone?” he asked.

  “About six months, maybe more.”

  “Well, as you know, the estate is in probate, which limits what I can reasonably do for you, but since your…husband has taken care of the outstanding debts, I’m sure I can continue the payments to keep the house running and the servants paid during your absence.”

  “I still do not understand how my parents’ estate could go from being worth millions of dollars during their lives to being worthless after their deaths,” she said.

  “As you know, there were some dealings with certain unscrupulous people…”

  “You’re implying it was Mr. Kincaid, aren’t you?”

  Berringer cleared his throat. “Your brother told me himself…” His words trailed off as if his feelings were hurt.

  Jennifer didn’t like the man, but she took pity on him and dropped that line of thinking. “It was not my intent to criticize, Mr. Berringer. I know you’re doing the best you can.”

  Jennifer ended the conversation and put down the telephone. She had reassured everyone but herself.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  January 1881

  Chane’s warning about the coldness of the journey turned out to be prophetic. He avoided her whenever possible, not touching her once on the almost six-day train trip. It was as though he’d turned to ice inside. The few times he looked at her, she had the feeling something vital had died in him. It hurt her in a way nothing else could have.

  She knew part of it was because of his grandfather and some of the things he’d done—the crooked deals he’d arranged that Chane had dismantled. And part might be fear that he’d fail to save the railroad. It was odd to her that his problems didn’t soften him, but rather, seemed to harden his heart, against her and everyone else. To her he was curt and businesslike, but not rude. He stayed to himself and seemed to be reverting to something more primitive. He seemed like a man with his back to the wall. He wanted nothing from her, except to be left alone.

  It was long after sunset when they finally reached La Junta, Colorado, a small bustling town situated on the banks of the Arkansas River. The tiny town was to become the railhead and the northernmost station in Chane’s budding railroad empire.

  Their train was met by two men who worked for Chane. Jennifer noticed an instant change in her husband. Faced with strangers who worked for him, he had to at least be civil to her. He helped her down from the Pullman coach and then carried her overnight bag. She balanced on crutches on the dimly lit station platform as the men shook hands all around. Cold wind whipped Jennifer’s skirts and bonnet.

  “This is my wife,” Chane said gruffly, nodding to the younger man. “Tom Tinkersley. Tom is in charge of security.”

  Tinkersley reminded Jennifer of Peter; he was blond and handsome, with an earnest light in his eyes. He wore two guns low on his lean hips. He
seemed entirely comfortable with them and with himself.

  “Tom has a contingent of Apache scouts and ex-soldiers guarding our railroad crews, supplies, and right-of-way.”

  “Nice to meet you,” she said quietly.

  “Mrs. Kincaid.” Tinkersley’s voice was deep and respectful, but a smile started in his eyes that told her he found her attractive. The scowl on Chane’s face indicated he’d seen it as well.

  “And this is Beaver Targle,” Chane continued, gesturing to a big man with a pear-shaped body. “Beaver is in charge of the laborers who’re going to build the railroad.”

  “I’m shore sorry, Mrs. Kincaid, about not having no proper carriage and all, but this here buckboard is the best I could do on short notice,” Targle said, waving his arm at a horse-drawn vehicle near the station platform. His loud, booming voice carried a western twang.

  Chane surprised Jennifer by picking her up and carrying her to the buckboard. He lifted her up onto the seat and climbed aboard himself. When the wind ballooned her skirts, Chane stuffed them back under the hem of her coat. Targle stowed her crutches in the wagon bed behind them and climbed up next to Jennie. Tom Tinkersley rode his horse alongside.

  Jennifer moved closer to Chane. Gusty winds tore at her bonnet and sent shivers up her stockinged legs. Kerosene lamps on the station platform flickered as they rode away. Shadows moved and swayed with the wind. Smells of wood smoke and cooking beans filled the air.

  Tinkersley rode close to them to speak to her. “It’s too bad it’s dark. In the daytime you can see the Rocky Mountains to the west and the Arkansas River to the north.” His voice had a soft southern accent.

  “Where are you from, Mr. Tinkersley?”

  “Texas, ma’am.”

  This time Tinkersley caught Chane’s scowl and he dropped back a ways. The buckboard lived up to its name, almost bucking her off twice. If she hadn’t been wedged in between Targle and Chane, she probably would have gone flying into the wide, rutted road that ran between two rows of buildings outlined darkly against the enormous star-studded sky. Music from an out-of-tune piano wafted out from one of the buildings up ahead. Coarse laughter, an occasional yell, neighing horses, barking dogs, and a few night-singing birds added to the cacophony.