The Ballad of Emma O'Toole (7 page)

Stepping into the bathroom, he emerged a short time later, dressed and groomed for the
day. Emma slept on, her lovely eyes shadowed in weariness. Logan paused to gaze down at her.

His wife
.

Lord, what was he supposed to do with her? He was adept enough in the bedroom, but what did he know about sharing his life with another person? For the past seven years he’d kept to himself, trusting no one with his secrets. And he trusted Emma least of all. Being honest with her would be like handing her a loaded gun and inviting her to shoot him.

How could he be any kind of husband to this woman?

His bride had been through a hell of a time, Logan reminded himself—from her pregnancy and the death of her fiancé to the frigid days and nights of starving in a shanty. He remembered how she’d relished last night’s dinner. At least he could give her the gift of proper care. He could see that she’d never be hungry or cold again. And as for that rag that passed as a dress…

His mouth twitched in a half smile as an idea struck him. Lifting the eiderdown quilt off the bed he laid it gently around her. Emma would wake to find him gone, but he felt confident
she’d stay in the room. Where else could she go?

She stirred, whimpered, then settled back into sleep. With a last cautious glance, Logan stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind him.

Emma woke at seven-thirty. The first thing she noticed was the warm quilt that covered her in the chair. The second was that Logan was gone.

Neck and shoulders aching, she pushed the quilt aside and staggered to her feet. She was usually a light sleeper, but she had no recollection of his covering her. Even in the chair, she’d slept like a stone.

Now what was she going to do? She had nothing to eat, nothing clean to wear, no money and no place to go. The wretched man had left her stranded here, without so much as a note to let her know when he’d be back.

The room was cold but there was kindling in the wood box. At least making a fire would give her something to do.

Opening the stove, she shook the ashes down through the grate and stacked the kindling with a log on top. The bathroom furnished enough
paper to serve as tinder. Now all she needed was a match.

She had wiped her hands clean and was searching vainly for a matchbox when she heard a discreet knock on the door, followed by a boyish voice.

“Breakfast, Mrs. Devereaux. May we bring it in?”

Mrs. Devereaux?
The name sounded like some stranger’s, certainly not her own. “I—I didn’t order any breakfast,” Emma stammered. “There must be some mistake.”

“No mistake, ma’am. Your husband ordered it sent up before he went out this morning. May we open the door and bring it in?”

Emma had never been served breakfast in her adult life. She called out her assent and stood by the unlit stove as the door swung open. A young man whose long face and bony build reminded her of Billy John entered with an apple-cheeked girl in a maid’s uniform—he with a tray similar to the one Emma had seen last night, she with a smaller tray bearing a steaming pewter coffeepot and an elegant silver service set, complete with cream, sugar, salt and pepper shakers, molded butter and a pot of jam.

“Have a seat, ma’am. We’ll just set this up
for you.” They moved with stunning efficiency, setting the trays down, whisking the covers off the hot food and pouring the coffee. While the girl spread a snowy napkin in Emma’s lap, the young man produced a match and lit a blaze in the stove.

“Did my husband say when he’d be returning?” Emma forced her mouth around the unaccustomed words
my husband
.

“I wasn’t the one he spoke to,” the girl replied, “but I did notice he’d ordered lunch for you.”

“I see.” So Logan had planned to be gone all day, frittering away his time in the saloons most likely. But at least he’d been thoughtful enough to see that she didn’t go hungry.

“I can make up the room while you eat,” the maid said as the boy left. “Would that be all right?”

“Yes…certainly.” Emma inhaled the savory aromas of bacon, eggs, toasted bread and coffee, grateful that she’d suffered so little from the morning sickness that plagued most expectant mothers. She was ravenous.

For the past three years she’d awakened before dawn to fire the stove and boil a huge kettle of steaming oatmeal mush. The mush was scooped into bowls and served with bread
and coffee to the thirty miners who lived at Vi Clawson’s boardinghouse. If time allowed, Emma could breakfast on any leftovers after she’d laid out the boiled eggs and mutton sandwiches for their lunch boxes. She’d known better than to complain. Vi would only have reminded her how lucky she was to have a roof over her head.

Now here she was, feasting like royalty in a room fit for a duchess, all because Billy John was dead and she’d married the man who killed him. It was up to her to put things right and use her position as the man’s wife to get her revenge. Otherwise, there’d be no justification for the decadent way she was living.

By the time Emma was through eating, the maid had finished tidying the room and changing the linens. She carried the tray out and closed the door.

Alone now, Emma stood at the window. Veiled by the lace curtain, she gazed down at the busy scene below. By now the storekeepers had opened their doors. Foot traffic, shoppers, workers and idlers, moved along the boardwalks. Two pretty girls primped and posed, admiring their reflections in the windowpane of a dry goods store.

Buggies and riders moved aside for a mule-drawn
ore wagon, rumbling down to the Marsac Mill at the lower end of town. Even here, two floors above the ground, the pounding of that mill was a steady pulse, like the beat of a monstrous mechanical heart.

A movement on the far side of the street caught her eye. Her fists clenched as she recognized Hector Armitage in his checkered coat and bowler hat. The man was standing in a doorway, his eyes on the hotel. Either some source had told him she was here, or he’d seen Logan leave earlier. Now he waited like a hungry coyote, hoping, no doubt, that she’d come outside and he could catch her by surprise. She drew back, hoping he hadn’t glimpsed her through the lace curtain.

Not long ago, Emma could’ve strolled freely along Park City’s Main Street, lost in the crowd. But no longer. Here she was, locked in an upstairs room, a prisoner of her own notoriety. When Logan shot Billy John, he’d taken more than the boy she loved. He had robbed her of her freedom. That alone gave her reason to resent him.

But she’d done enough brooding. For now, she could at least try to make herself presentable. In the bathroom she rinsed her mouth, splashed her face clean and unbraided her
tangled hair. She was rummaging for a comb among Logan’s toiletries when she heard another rap on the door.

“Mrs. Devereaux?” The crisp voice was a woman’s. “This is Miss Enright from Birdwell’s Emporium.” Emma recognized the name of the most exclusive store in town. “Your husband stopped by and asked to have some things brought up for you. May we come in?”

Sweeping her loose hair back, Emma opened the door. The caller was middle-aged, dressed in a skirt and jacket of fawn-colored wool. Upswept brown hair and silver-rimmed spectacles completed the picture of pricey but conservative taste. Carrying a notepad and pencil, she marched into the room, followed by three young clerks, their arms piled high with cardboard boxes, which they stacked in a small mountain on the bed before leaving the two women alone.

“These can’t all be for me,” Emma protested.

“Only the ones you choose, of course.” Miss Enright separated three smaller boxes from the others. “I suggest you open these first, before we look at the dresses and shoes.”

Dresses? Shoes? Emma fought back a wave of light-headedness. Her fingers shook as she opened the smallest box to find a matched
silver-backed comb and brush, a set of tortoise shell combs and wire hairpins, and a toothbrush.

“I trust these will be suitable,” Miss Enright said. “Mr. Devereaux told me to choose what I thought you might like.”

Emma opened the larger box, which held three sets of fine, lace-trimmed underthings. She also found several pairs of soft white stockings with satin garters and a warm woolen dressing gown. A third box contained a ruffled petticoat and a new pink satin corset.

“Your husband said I was close to your size, so I chose items that would fit me,” Miss Enright said. “You’ll want to try them on, of course.”

“Of course.” As Emma fingered the elegant fabrics, half-afraid of snagging or soiling them, a fearful thought struck her. She shoved the boxes away. “Please don’t show me any more. There’s no way I can pay for these things. I don’t have a cent to my name.”

Miss Enright’s schoolmarmish expression didn’t flicker. “Your husband opened an account with us. Whatever you choose to keep will be charged to him.”

“Oh.” Emma felt like a backwoods bumpkin. She’d heard of store accounts, but the idea
of having and using one seemed as unnatural as walking on water. “So whatever I want…”

“It’s yours, and your husband will pay for it.” Miss Enright finished the sentence. “I know Your story, Mrs. Devereaux. Everybody knows. But as a businesswoman, it’s not my place to judge. Your husband’s money is the same color as anybody else’s.”

“I see.” The idea that she was being judged struck Emma like a slap. Hadn’t she been an innocent victim in this tragedy? Hadn’t she wed Logan to get justice for Billy John? What were people saying about her?

She suppressed the urge to ask Miss Enright. The woman’s cold manner didn’t encourage questions. And the story people thought they knew had been written by Hector Armitage. She could just imagine the heyday he was having with his version of the trial and her marriage to Logan.

Miss Enright thrust more boxes toward Emma. “I brought along every style we had in your size. Some of them will doubtless need altering, but I’m hoping there’ll be one or two you can wear right away.”

Emma raised a corner of the lid, then hesitated. “You know that I’m—”

“That you’re expecting?” Miss Enright registered
her disapproval with a delicate sniff. “Of course I do. But you’ll need things to wear until you start showing. When the time comes, we can find you something suitable in larger sizes.”

And bring you more trade
, Emma thought. The money would be better spent on a sewing machine she could use to make garments for herself and the baby. Her mother had taught her to sew, and she was a fair hand at it. Maybe she could even start a dressmaking business, to compete with the snooty Miss Enright and her fancy store.

It did strike her that spending extravagant sums was bound to annoy Logan—all to the good. But after weighing the notion, Emma set it aside. Squandering her husband’s money would, in the end, impoverish her, as well. Today she would choose only what she needed. The rest would go back through the gilded doors of Birdwell’s Emporium, and she’d speak to Logan about getting a sewing machine to see to herself in the coming months.

One by one, she opened the boxes, choosing only the most serviceable frocks to be tried on—sturdy cottons that could be washed and a dark blue serge that might do for Sunday best. Anything that looked fussy and impractical was reboxed and stacked in the rejection pile.

Then Emma came to the last box.

Slowly she raised the lid. Her eyes caught the flash of silk taffeta in a silvery teal-blue. “Oh,” she murmured. “Oh…”

Her heart tossed practicality out the window.

L
ogan crossed the hotel lobby and mounted the stairs to the second floor. It had been a long, tiring day, but he looked back on what he’d done with newfound satisfaction.

After setting up an account at the Emporium and arranging for Emma’s new clothes, he’d gone to the claims office to register his ownership of the Constellation Mine. The next stop had been a visit to the bank, where he’d opened a personal account for his cash and rented a safety-deposit box for the mining stock certificates.

He’d begun to feel damned near respectable.

After lunch he’d hired horses and a Cockney guide to take him up the canyon to his mine. On the way he’d taken time to check
out some of the big operations, like the Ontario, the Woodside and the Silver King. Their vast mazes of sheds, hoist works, chutes and narrow-gauge tracks spilled over the mountainsides like fair-sized towns. The guide had told him how, when faced with flooding in their deeper shafts, the owners of the Ontario had installed a huge steam-powered Cornish-style pump to suck the groundwater up to a drainage tunnel. “Flywheel’s bigger than a bloody mansion, I ’ear tell,” the man had said. “And it cost more than a bloke like me could make in a thousand years. But it did the job. Now they’re diggin’ silver out of the devil’s own backyard.”

By comparison, Logan’s own mine, the Constellation, was small in size. The outbuildings appeared to be in decent shape, but there wasn’t a soul in sight. The previous owner, Axel Thorson, had cleaned his cash out of the mine’s accounts, transferred some of the workers to his new, more profitable operation in Woodside Gulch, and laid off the rest.

Logan’s skin had prickled with wonder when he walked into the shaft house. Here was the heart, bones and guts of the mine. A five-by-ten gap in the plank floor framed the opening of the shaft. A wood-framed two-level cage, each level large enough to hold a cluster of half
a dozen men, hung by a hook from a cable of braided steel. The cable ran up to a towering gallows frame as tall as a three-story house. This giant scaffold supported the hoist cable, which was controlled by a steam-run hoisting drum as big around as a wagon wheel. Mounted next to the drum was a set of gears and a seat for the hoist operator. Logan recognized another machine as a steam-run compressor that pumped air through a long hose for the drilling apparatus in the shaft below.

The machines appeared battered and rusty, as if they’d been hauled from an abandoned mine somewhere else. No doubt that was why they’d been left behind. But a few dents and the expense of some repairs wouldn’t matter as long as they could be made to work.

To one side of the shaft, looking somewhat out of place, was a windlass rigged to a set of pulleys by a stout hemp rope. This hand-cranked device, the guide explained, would have been used as a hoist when the shaft was new and shallow, before the steam equipment was brought in. It had probably been left in place as an emergency measure, to bring up the miners in case the steam hoist failed.

Standing on the lip of the shaft, Logan had fished a penny from his pocket and tossed it
down into the blackness. He’d waited for the faint clink of metal striking stone. It never came.

“Well,” he’d joked, “there goes my first investment in this mine.”

“You’ll be throwin’ a lot more pennies down that ’ole afore you’re done,” the guide had responded. “A prudent man might keep ’is money in ’is pocket.”

“I’ve been called a lot of things in my day, but never a prudent man,” Logan had quipped. But the little Cockney’s words merited some serious thought.

To get the mine producing again, Logan would need enough capital for payroll and other operating costs until The mine started producing. Could he borrow against the stocks, or even against the mine itself? The prospective risk was staggering.

He could always sell out. But the money from the sale wouldn’t last forever. The mine and the silver it produced could generate income that would remain for years to come. The more Logan pondered that, the more it came to matter.

What he didn’t know about mining could fill a small library. But he was determined to learn. As a man who’d never owned anything
he couldn’t carry in a suitcase, he suddenly had his own piece of the earth. Use it wisely, and, with luck, it would provide for all his needs. It might even make him rich. Or if things went badly, he could lose it all.

The whole venture was a gamble, with the highest stakes he’d ever played. The thought of this new game made his blood race.

Tomorrow he would pay another visit to the bank. After that he’d try to track down the mine’s former supervisor. Meanwhile, tonight, he’d be dealing with his bride. And Emma was her own kind of gamble.

As he mounted the stairs to their hotel room, his fingers tightened around the key, which he’d picked up at the desk. Their room lay at the far end of the lamp-lit hall. What would he find when he opened the door?

Would she thank him for the meals and the clothes he’d ordered?

Would she fly at him in a fury for leaving her alone all day without a word or, more likely, meet him with frigid silence?

What if, against all odds, she’d simply vanished? After all, what did he know about his wife? She was beautiful, spirited, brave and proud—and she hated his guts. Aside from that, Emma was practically a stranger.

Slipping the key into the lock, he gave it a turn. Before opening the door, he rapped lightly on the wood. There was no answer.

“Emma?” He pushed the door open and stepped into the room.

Softened by the glow of lamplight, she was facing the mirrored wardrobe, her arms raised in a fumbling attempt to pin up her heavy hair. The pose arched her back above her corseted waist giving her the graceful look of a dancer.

Hearing him, she glanced back over her shoulder. the silk gown she wore matched the color of her startled eyes and clung to her still-slim body above the bustle, in a fashion designed to make a man’s mouth water. Even in her hideous old gray dress, she’d been beautiful. Tonight his wife was a goddess.

“Don’t move,” he said. “Let me help you.”

He strode across the room to stand behind her. Logan was no hairdresser, but he remembered the times he’d seen his sister Angelique twist up her long black hair and pin it into place with combs. the trick, he recalled, was to angle the comb in one direction to catch the hair with the teeth, then tip it the opposite direction before pushing it in. How hard could it be?

Without asking, he took the tortoiseshell comb from her hand. Her hair was liquid satin
in his fingers. He’d fantasized about this, the weight of that golden mass, the feel of it against his skin. Desire tightened his loins. But that would have to wait. Right now Logan had a different plan.

“You needn’t bother helping,” she protested. “I was just passing time, trying one thing and another. It’s not as if we were planning to go somewhere.”

“Who says we aren’t?” Logan twisted up her hair, resisting the urge to brush his lips across the nape of her lovely neck. “What about dinner?”

She went rigid. “But how can we? All those people, the way they’d look at us—”

“We can’t hide forever, Emma. The food downstairs is excellent and you look far too beautiful to stay shut up in this room. I want to show you off.”

She turned around to face him. From the front, her gown was even more becoming, simply cut with no decoration except the delicate tucks and smocking that framed the low bodice. Logan found himself wishing he could drape his bride in diamonds and pearls. But Emma didn’t need jewels. She was stunning enough without them.

Her hands clenched and unclenched at her
waist. “What about Hector Armitage? He’s been waiting outside most of the day. I saw him from the window.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll be dining inside. And if he tries to get near us, the little muckraker will wish he hadn’t.” The comb slipped out of Logan’s fingers and clattered to the floor. Bending, he scooped it up. “Something tells me I wasn’t cut out to be a hairdresser,” he muttered.

“Well, never mind. I’ll just do it the usual way.” Her deft fingers braided her hair and coiled it into a tight bun at the nape of her neck. With her stunning eyes and glowing skin, even that simple style looked elegant. “Now, if you’ll excuse me while I change into something more suitable…”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t?” Her eyebrows shot up.

“Don’t change your dress.”

“But it’s a party gown! When I first tried it on, I confess I couldn’t resist. But I’ve come to my senses. It’s going back to Birdwell’s in the morning.”

“Keep the gown, Emma. I want to see the look on people’s faces when you walk downstairs on my arm.”

He could see the panic welling in her eyes.
“But they’ll talk. They’ll say I’m nothing but a silly kitchen girl putting on airs.”

“Fine.” Logan laid his hands on her shoulders, turning her to face him. “They’re going to talk anyway, so let’s give them something to talk about. I promise, there’ll be no woman in that dining room who won’t be jealous of the way you look. And there’ll be no man who won’t envy me my beautiful wife.”

She gazed up at him, her lower lip quivering. It was all Logan could do to keep from crushing her in his arms and bruising her mouth with kisses. “You and I have nothing to lose,” he said. “We’re already the scandal of the territory. Let’s make the most of it—show them all that we can hold our heads up. Are you game?”

She hesitated, trembling, then slowly nodded. The thought of the trust she was giving him raised a lump in Logan’s throat. Releasing her shoulders, he turned aside and offered her his arm.

“Well, then, Mrs. Devereaux,” he said, “shall we go down to dinner?”

Emma’s throat clenched as they reached the top of the open stairway. From the dining room below came the clink of china and flatware, the
faint tinkle of a piano and, rising above it, the beehive hum of voices.

As they moved down the stairs, she stole a glance at her husband’s profile. His head was erect, his mouth fixed in the determined line she’d come to recognize, though she noted that a muscle twitched in his cheek. Logan was nervous, too, she realized. He’d chosen to fly in the face of gossip and confront their self-righteous critics but he wasn’t comfortable with it any more than she was.

Under different circumstances, she might have warmed to him. But this, she knew, was nothing more than a performance, a charade by two actors pretending to be a happy couple.

Reaching across his body, he squeezed her hand where it rested on his arm. “Smile,” he whispered. “You’re not walking to the gallows.”

Lifting her head, she arranged her features in a pleasant expression. A hush fell over the dining room as they neared the bottom of the stairs. Emma’s skin crawled as she felt every eye on her.

Except for the steadiness of Logan’s arm and the key, secure in his pocket, she would have wheeled and fled back to the room. Starving would’ve been preferable to what she was about to face.

She raised her chin a little higher. Let them look. After all, what did she and Logan have to hide? She’d broken no laws. And whatever crime Logan had committed, he’d faced justice for it and had received his sentence. Now he was taking responsibility for what he’d done.

Merciful heaven, was she actually defending him?

The middle-aged headwaiter, his face a mask, led them to a table in the far corner, which meant running a gauntlet across the dining room. A buzz of whispered conversation rose from the diners. Emma caught the word
shameless
as she passed. She pretended not to hear. The next time would be easier, she told herself.

As they neared their table, one proper-looking matron rose from her seat, grabbed her husband’s arm and stalked out of the dining room, leaving their meals half-finished. A few other diners stirred, making Emma fear there might be a mass exodus. But after a few tense moments it was evident that no one else cared enough to abandon the food they’d paid good money for. By the time Emma and Logan had settled into their chairs and opened their menus, the atmosphere was returning to normal.

“Was that so bad?” Logan sat directly across
from her, light from a single candle flickering on his face. A smile played across his sardonic mouth.

“It was bad enough. I seem to have been branded a scarlet woman.”

“I always did think scarlet a lovely color.” He took a sip of the red wine the waiter had poured. “Hold your head high, Emma. You haven’t done anything wrong, and anybody who says you have is a judgmental fool.”

“Can’t we talk about something else, like where you were all day?”

He chuckled. “So you missed me, did you?”

“I didn’t say that. I’ll confess I imagined you at the gambling tables. But as soon as you came in, I realized I’d been wrong.”

One black eyebrow quirked in silent question. He took time to give their order to the waiter, then returned his attention to her. “So, how did you know that? Does my bride have second sight?”

Emma shook her head. “If you’d been gambling, you’d have walked in reeking like a saloon.”

“Very clever.”

“So, do you want to tell me what you were up to?”

“If you want to hear about it, I’ll tell you. But you must promise to stop me if you get bored.”

“I’ve been bored all day. Anything you say is bound to be an improvement.”

Over a dinner of braised duck and roast potatoes, Logan told her about his plans for the mine. Emma had lived in Park City since the early days of the silver boom, and she’d spent three years listening to the miners in Vi’s boardinghouse. She was able to surprise him with her knowledge of mining and even answer some of his questions.

In a way, it felt wrong to help him, to talk so companionably with him about his plans for the mine. And yet the mine would need to support her, and the baby. There was nothing wrong with seeing to that, was there? Besides, she wasn’t used to spending her days with nothing to do and scarcely anyone to talk to. If she proved her usefulness in mining concerns then maybe the next time her husband went out, he wouldn’t be so quick to leave her to the mercy of Miss Enright and her ilk.