Mountain Laurel Read online

“But, Captain Montgomery, what you don’t seem to understand is that I don’t want you with me. I never asked for the army’s help; I never wanted it. And I especially didn’t want someone like you. Under no circumstances do I want you with me.”

  “Orders,” he murmured. “Orders.”

  “Your orders, not mine.”

  He rubbed his hand across his eyes, then looked at the bottle of whiskey. “What’s in this?”

  “Opium,” she said brightly. “It was Edith’s idea. She used to give a free drink to any of her, ah…customers if she took a dislike to them. When they woke up, she used to tell them they had been magnificent lovers. Not one man ever doubted her.”

  He could barely keep sleep from overtaking him. “You drugged me?”

  “You’re the one who asked for the whiskey. I was the one who reaped the benefits.” She got off the cot and went to him, patted him on the head. “Don’t worry, Captain, you’ll wake up in a few hours, none the worse for wear. And when you do, would you please go find someone else to annoy? I have plans for my life, and they don’t include a pompous, overbearing, know-it-all army captain who calls me a traveling singer.”

  She took a step toward the tent flap, and he made a motion as though he meant to go after her, but he was too sleep-weakened. “Good night, Captain,” she said sweetly. “Sweet dreams.” She left the tent.

  Chapter 3

  Maddie glanced up at the sun through the trees to confirm her direction, then leaned forward to pat her horse’s neck. It hadn’t been easy getting away from Frank and Sam, but she’d done it. Whatever made men assume she was helpless? Why did men like Frank and Sam take it for granted that she didn’t know up from down? Frank had grown up in New York City and Sam had spent his life in the South—until they’d hung—hanged, she corrected herself—him, then he’d gone north and that’s where Maddie had first been introduced to him.

  She removed the cap from her canteen and took a drink. It didn’t seem to matter that neither man had ever crossed the Mississippi, each still believed he knew more about tracking and trailing in these parts than a female who’d spent most of her life west of the river.

  Just as that captain did, she thought. Whereas neither Frank nor Sam made her angry, he did.

  For a moment, anger made her tighten her jaw, but then she smiled. She’d won in the end, though. After he’d fallen asleep from the opium, she’d gone to where he’d tied both Frank and Sam, and after some work released them.

  “Sailors’ knots,” Frank had muttered, and then said a few things about no man being able to sneak up on him.

  Maddie hadn’t answered him. When she’d hired the two men she’d known she should have hired men who knew more about Indian country, at least men who knew a badger from a beaver, a Ute from a Crow, but there hadn’t been time, so she’d taken the men General Yovington had sent her. Frank’s face and Sam’s size were enough to frighten most people. Sam, as usual, hadn’t said anything when Maddie had released him. Sam acted as though words were precious jewels and he’d become a pauper if he gave any away.

  She found Edith under the coach, bound and gagged—and enraged. It seemed that Captain Montgomery had slipped into bed with her before tying her to the wagon wheel. “I thought he wanted me,” she spat out. “All he wanted was to tie me up. Even then I thought he’d planned somethin’ interesting, but he just left me. Left me there! Untouched!”

  Maddie just worked at the knots in the thin ropes and didn’t ask any questions about “something interesting.”

  They broke camp immediately. Sam carried the slumbering captain outside the tent and dumped him at the edge of a steep hillside, then, with his foot, gave him a little push so he went rolling down the hill.

  Maddie hoped the captain didn’t freeze in the cool mountain air, but she thought a man such as Captain Montgomery, with as much audacity as he harbored, would have enough to keep him warm until morning.

  They had struck out for the gold fields, traveling slowly on the rutted trail that passed for a road until the sun came up, then Sam had whipped the horses forward, and they’d put many miles between themselves and the determined Captain Montgomery.

  Now it was three days later and they hadn’t seen him in all that time. Perhaps he had frozen to death. Or, more likely, he’d gone back to his army post and complained about an opera singer who wouldn’t listen to “reason.” Whatever had happened, she was very glad to get rid of him.

  She hung the canteen over her saddle horn and once again removed the map from inside her tight wool jacket and looked at it. She knew it by heart now, but she still wanted to make sure she was in the right place at the right time.

  When she took the letter out she also pulled out a lock of Laurel’s hair. It had come with the first letter, and there had been a note saying one of Laurel’s fingers would be included with the next letter if Maddie missed today’s meeting.

  With trembling hands she folded the map and put it and the lock of hair back into her pocket and kicked her horse forward up the steep, rocky slope.

  They had Laurel, she thought. These anonymous, faceless men, or women for that matter, had taken an innocent twelve-year-old child from her home in Philadelphia and used her to force Maddie to do what they wanted.

  Six months ago Maddie had made her American debut. She’d already conquered Europe, having sung throughout the continent for nine years, always to great acclaim, but she’d longed to return to America. Her manager, John Fairlie, had booked her in Boston and New York, and for three glorious months she’d sung to Americans, who’d been enthusiastic and generous in their praise of her.

  But then three months ago her aunt, who had a small house in Philadelphia, had sent a message saying that Maddie must come to Philadelphia as soon as possible.

  Here’s where Maddie’s memory troubled her. Why hadn’t she gone immediately? Why hadn’t she walked out the door and boarded the first train to Philadelphia? Instead, she’d waited three days, until after she’d sung three more roles before she went to see her aunt. After all, the woman was old and a bit daffy and maybe even a little senile, so she could wait.

  By the time Maddie got to Philadelphia it was too late to change anything. Laurel, Maddie’s little sister, had been sent east to live with her father’s brother’s widow and to go to school. Maddie had known her sister was but a few hundred miles away but, what with her performances and the demands of singing, she’d had no time to make the journey to Philadelphia—hadn’t made the time, she corrected herself.

  So for several months Maddie had been within a few hundred miles of her little sister and hadn’t been to see her.

  Now, urging her horse forward, she remembered her sister as a chubby, awkward child following her around, sitting under the piano while Maddie sang. Their father used to say that he didn’t know if Laurel would ever be a singer herself, but he was sure she’d be an opera lover.

  In the nine years Maddie had been singing in Europe, she’d written letters and exchanged photographs with her faraway family and she’d received adoring letters from Laurel as she grew up. Laurel couldn’t sing as her sister Maddie could, or draw as her sister Gemma could, but she could adore her talented older sisters. She could keep scrapbooks about them and worship them from afar.

  Maddie knew she’d taken her little sister’s adoration for granted, and over the years she’d sent her copies of programs signed by a king or the czar or a little gold fan or even a pearl necklace, yet she hadn’t taken the time to visit her when she was so near.

  By the time Maddie got to Philadelphia, her aunt was in bed, prostrate with anxiety and nerves. It had been nearly a week since a man had come to her house and told her he was holding Laurel captive and that he wanted to talk to Maddie.

  “Your father will never forgive me,” her aunt kept saying. “Oh, Maddie, I did my best. Laurel is such a sweet child. She was never noisy or messy like other children and she loved her new school. Why, oh, why did this happen to her?”

  Maddie