Wren took the paper in hand, steeling herself against the tide of ink.
MURDER DOWNRIVER ON BALLANTYNE LINE.
Mim expelled a rare sigh. “The river pilot who took Mr. James’s place was killed on the New Orleans levee just yesterday. A note was found on the body warning James he’d be next.”
A chill spilled over her. “But why?”
“James has been running slaves on Ballantyne boats for years—bringing ’em up from New Orleans and other parts to freedom. He takes such risks and has always come away unharmed, but now he’s the one being pursued. The coach accident that left him so wrecked was nae accident at all, ye ken.”
“Someone means James harm?”
“There’s a group called the Mystic Clan, the papers are saying, who are murdering and wreaking havoc all along the lower Mississippi and are bent on James’s destruction.”
“What of Captain Dean?”
“He’s on his way upriver now, though he’ll have to come by land once in Cincinnati since the Ohio’s froze. But ye can bet he’ll be watching his back the whole way.”
Moving to the hearth, Wren fed the paper to the fire, the flames hot against her outstretched hand. James . . . her Jamie. Who’d never said a word about the trouble. Who’d hidden his involvement beneath his everlasting reserve and impeccable manners. She watched the newsprint curl and turn to ash, wishing it would somehow end the matter.
“At least he won’t be escorting ye tonight and drawing attention to himself.” Mim lifted Wren’s feathered hat from her head and returned it to the hatbox. “’Twill just be you, me, and Mr. Malachi at the concert . . .”
Wren listened as if from a distance. With Jenny Lind stealing headlines, Pittsburgh would be distracted from more ill-timed Ballantyne press, as Andra called it. Wren could just imagine the agonized turn of her aunt’s thoughts, her hopes that Wren would dazzle society by appearing for the first time in public with Malachi, an occasion sure to supplant any sordid news.
She sank down in the nearest chair, hot and cold by turns. “I don’t care about the concert, Mim. Not with James and the trouble he’s in.”
“Well, wet sheep dinna shrink, they just shake off the water.” Mim stood looking at her, hands on hips. “Ye dinna give in to misfortune. Ye get up and go on as the good Lord wills. Knowing James Sackett, he’ll do just that.”
“But someone clearly means him harm. Every time he sets foot on the street . . . acts as my escort . . .” The past was rushing in, bringing home Papa’s predicament of long ago, the old injury that dogged his every step. “James needs to go somewhere safe, far beyond Pittsburgh, like Papa did.”
“Aye, that he does. But my guess is James will stay on and face what’s to come, including acting as yer escort and making light o’ the danger.”
Making light of the danger was exactly what Wren feared.
“We have the Royal Box,” Malachi told her as she entered the opera house on his arm.
“Seems fitting.” Wren paused, the commotion at their entry leaving her slightly wide-eyed. “I feel almost like royalty, given the crowd outside.”
The press of spectators around the theater was overwhelming, the reckless hack and omnibus drivers intimidating as they pushed their way past with whips and shouts. It was a blessed relief to step into the hushed, elegant foyer at last.
Malachi grimaced. “They’re a rude bunch, I’m afraid, gawking and shoving to see us, and we’re not even the main attraction.”
She caught her breath. “You’re one of them, Mr. Cameron. You and your Pennsylvania Railroad.”
He winked at her, his slow smile disarming. “They weren’t staring at me, Miss Ballantyne.”
Heat prickled her neck, her temperature rising along with her alarm, her concern for James overriding the novelty and excitement of the occasion. She was barely conscious of her dress, her jewels, Malachi’s lingering gaze. Andra had insisted she wear Grandmother’s sapphires. Though beautiful, they felt cold and heavy about her neck. Wren preferred the purity and simplicity of pearls but had let Andra have her way.
Up a carpeted staircase they went, past dozens of other polished ladies and gentlemen, following the attendant who unlocked their private box. Wren entered first, eyes adjusting to the dim lighting. Someone had prepared well for their coming. Champagne. A silver bowl of red roses. Mother-of-pearl opera glasses beside a leather case.
Stepping to the front of the box, Wren felt a rush of awe. Countless eyes turned toward them as Malachi joined her at the balustrade. There was no denying Malachi Cameron was an attractive man. Sought after. Admired. Already a force to be reckoned with in the world of finance and industry.
He took her gloved hand and brought it to his lips and didn’t let go. There was possession in it . . . purpose. Fingers captive, she looked out on the other concertgoers in the huge, horseshoe-shaped hall. Each box and alcove contained a little drama all its own. Couples chattered and laughed gaily, sipping champagne and raising lorgnettes to better view the preperformance activity.
No one had a more sumptuous box, a more regal view. For the moment it seemed she was queen of a gilt and glitter kingdom. This was privilege. Power. She breathed in its heady fragrance. Tried to feel at home. She wasn’t a queen. But she could be one.
The box beside theirs was occupied by the Mellons and their friends. The nasal quality of Alice Mellon’s voice rose above the hubbub of the hall as she turned toward them with a wave of her ostrich feather fan.
“Good evening, Mr. Cameron.”
Without a word, Malachi looked to Wren, as if giving Alice time to acknowledge her too. Empty seconds ticked by, and then Malachi turned his back on the Mellon box.
Cut. By a Cameron.
Wren’s elation was short-lived as cold reality rushed in. What were the petty snubs of society when one’s life hung in the balance?
Jamie, Jamie.
She clung to his name, praying for his protection. Her every thought was consumed with his safety. Was Malachi aware of the situation? He showed nothing but pleasure at being alone with her. Mim was missing. The realization added to the turmoil roiling inside her.
With a smile Malachi looked skyward. “Old Drury may be an antique, but the acoustics are sound. Miss Lind, with her extraordinary vocal powers, may well raise the frescoed ceiling.”
Wren lifted her eyes to the ornate design overhead. With a touch to her arm, Malachi seated her and then himself, facing out on the ornate hall. In his hand was the program, all mixed recital pieces, some she knew by heart. Taking a steadying breath, she managed, “Which arrangement most appeals to you, Mr. Cameron?”
He glanced at the paper, his voice thoughtful. “Mendelssohn’s ‘Wedding March.’”
She felt her color rise at his very telling choice. “A truly beautiful arrangement.” Though she didn’t look up, she could feel his eyes on her. “I’m partial to Miss Lind’s celebrated ‘Bird Song’ for the violin.”
“That would be a rare Guarneri, the papers say.”
“Oh? I wish Papa was here.” Wistfulness crept into her tone. “He’s never stopped looking for the old Guarneri Grandfather sold long ago.”
“If it’s any comfort, your father should return any day.” Leaning back in his chair, he took a sip of champagne. “He’s made it as far as Lancaster by train, according to the telegram I received yesterday. I’ll be glad to see him again, given matters with your grandfather.”
Malachi often mentioned Grandfather. Was he worried that she—all her Ballantyne kin—might be pitched headlong into mourning? If so, any engagement would be postponed for a year or better.
The heavy stage curtains parted. The music started. At the first notes, Malachi took her hand again, the program fluttering to the floor, forgotten. She shut her eyes as Miss Lind’s high, trilling soprano broke through the grand hall’s expectant hush. Andra seemed to intrude as well, her vehemence as fresh as yesterday.
The only acceptable way out of your debut is illness, mourning, or
the announcement of your engagement.
Thankful for the shadows, Wren bit the inside of her cheek. The Guarneri’s tone was impossibly sweet. Stringed instruments so stirred her that she found it hard to keep herself in check. That would be her excuse if Malachi noticed any show of emotion. No one need know the struggle in her spirit over James’s severing words.
There’s no future to be had with me.
In hindsight she understood. He was a hunted man. A haunted man. Like Papa had been. The cold truth left her heart in scattered bits. She could not save him. She could simply try to allay some of the danger by doing away with the season. Malachi was inching nearer to offering her a way of escape. And in that escape, unbeknownst to him, lay helping James.
As Miss Lind’s first song ended, Malachi poured her a glass of champagne. Its heady effervescence seemed to race through her veins, melting away the last shred of her resistance and his restraint. They left the front of the box to sit on a loveseat half hidden by a curtain, away from too many lorgnettes and prying eyes.
His hazel gaze darkened with intensity. “I think you first bewitched me along the road that autumn day.”
She couldn’t help but smile. “In the gloaming, when you mistook me for a servant?”
In hindsight it was amusing and set them to laughing.
“I never expected to see a Ballantyne walking from town, clutching a fiddle of incalculable worth,” he murmured. “Few would believe it. You’re such a humble lass.”
“Not a proper Pittsburgh one, truly.”
He took the empty glass from her hand and set it on the table. “If I’d wanted a proper Pittsburgh belle, I would have wed one. If you haven’t realized it by now, Rowena, it doesn’t matter to me that you eat your ice cream with a lobster fork and hum hymns when you’re especially nervous. I think it’s rather charming. No one will care about that when you become Mrs. Cameron.” His gaze swerved to the Mellon box. “And no one will ever dare cut you.”
The forceful words were spoken like a vow, making the feel of his arms about her less startling. He was nothing like James, the scent and feel of him unfamiliar, almost feral. His bearded jaw found the soft curve of her neck, and she let her arms go around him in an uneasy embrace.
“I can give you the world, Rowena. Let me give you the world.”
She started to speak but he silenced her, his kisses insistent if untried, and so unsatisfying she wanted to weep. Did he not notice, or care, that she did not kiss him back?
When the music resumed, Mim returned with their wraps, taking a chair by the door. The final piece was Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March.” Images of a life to come winnowed through Wren’s mind like a scythe through grain. A grand house in Pittsburgh. Philadelphia. Edinburgh. Endless miles of rail to unseen places. She was farther from Kentucky than she’d ever been.
How had it all come to this? In love with a man she couldn’t have . . . on the verge of giving herself to another? Her hope that James would love her was best set aside, secreted like a foolish, shameful thing. Malachi was the man who would help her forget, whom she might come to care for in time. Whose offer of marriage would free James from the season and any accompanying danger.
For James she would do this . . . her Jamie.
When the last note faded, Malachi turned to her. “Answer me, Rowena. Will you marry me? Be my bride?”
She looked up at him and set aside her final qualm. “Yes.”
34
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear.
MARK TWAIN
In the half light of early morning, James sat in River Hill’s book-lined study and listened to the big house come awake. Usually when he stayed the night he rode into town with the judge, but this morning Jack had insisted he remain behind. He was hearing an important case that would test the efficacy of the newly enacted Fugitive Slave Act, and Pittsburgh was on tenterhooks, the mood surly.
“Given the grim news in New Orleans and the fact reporters are camped about the courthouse awaiting word of you and your thoughts about the murder, I’d advise you remain here, James.”
The judge was no stranger to trouble himself. Threats had been made over the years about his abolitionist leanings, but none had materialized, perhaps given the Turlocks’ fearsome reputation and the simple fact that Jack knew how to turn the law in his favor.
Jack went out, his horse’s retreating hoofbeats lingering long in the winter air, finally giving way to the rambunctious bustle of the boys as they rushed downstairs for breakfast. Ellie had come in earlier with a tray of coffee, trying to coax James into eating, but the hollowness in his belly had little to do with hunger.
The Gazette lay open on the judge’s desk, the lead headline tearing at James a dozen different ways.
BALLANTYNE-CAMERON MERGER: RAILROAD MAGNATE TO WED PITTSBURGH BELLE.
The stunning loss of his friend and fellow pilot in New Orleans, his fury over the Madder affair, his concern Dean wouldn’t make it safely upriver, gnawed at James night and day yet paled in comparison to this morning’s news.
Even the normally stoic judge had been surprised, remarking how odd it was that an engagement would be announced in such businesslike terms. “No doubt a play on the railroad and a reminder of Malachi’s recent acquisition in the East.”
Ellie had taken a chair and read the column silently, looking up long enough to say quietly, “I suppose your acting as Wren’s escort is done, James. And well done it is.”
There was no pleasure in her praise, the small anguish he’d known with Georgiana swallowed up in a larger, more lasting misery. Ellie had left him alone soon after the judge had gone, as if sensing the subject was a sore one. But there was little time to smooth his tangled thoughts. In a few minutes Izannah pattered down the hall, her light step all too recognizable.
“James?” At the door she stood, her concerned gaze fastening on him in such a way he knew his outward calm wasn’t convincing. “Is anything wrong?”
He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t even get to his feet as any gentleman would.
She shut the door, moving to the desk to set down a box of steel pen nibs and paper. It was then she took in the Gazette. Her mouth went slack, the tired lines in her face deepening. He’d never seen her so stricken. “Last night the Jenny Lind concert . . . this morning marriage?” Her disbelieving gaze found his. “Did you know about this?”
The accusation in her eyes was worse than any wound. “I wasn’t there. I didn’t know.” But he’d sensed it like a storm brewing over the face of the river. He’d felt it coming, but he’d been powerless to stop it.
“Wren—and Malachi?” Her voice shook. “But she doesn’t love him. She’s simply going through with the season—with marriage—because she feels it is her duty.”
“Isn’t it?” he said a bit too sharply.
She turned the paper facedown as if she couldn’t bear the sight of it. “Wren cannot marry a man who—” Biting her lip, she worked to keep herself in check, but she was failing miserably, as was he. “She cannot marry a man who courts her while inquiring about another.”
“Meaning?”
“I was flattered at Christmas when Malachi asked me if I was being courted, if my heart was taken.” She touched her brow, voice cracking with vulnerability. “I didn’t realize he was pursuing Wren. The papers have linked her with many admirers, not only him. When he asked me what he did, I thought—hoped—”
His heart hitched at the sorrow in her expression—the blighted hope. Anguish tied another knot inside him. Malachi had been unsure of Wren. That was why he’d spoken to Izannah. Hedging his bets in case Wren refused him. Having entered the social season, he was determined to emerge with a bride. Which one was of little consequence, though in society’s eyes, a Ballantyne trumped a Turlock every time. The thought was harsh, but he understood his friend all too well. Malachi wanted the matter settled so he could return to the railroad.
“James, you know Wren as well as I
do. She’s simply not suited to his sort of life. She finds no joy in wealth and all its trappings. Her tastes are simple. She loves people, music. She hates pretense. They’re worlds apart.” Izannah paused, her color high. “But that’s not all. You care for Wren like I care for Malachi. Though you’ll never admit it, I know you well enough to sense what you try to keep hidden, what you yourself deny. She belongs to you, James, not Malachi.”
He set his jaw, the fervor of her words chipping away at his resolve. “Feelings aside, first and foremost she’s a Ballantyne.”
“So?” she flung back at him. “Do you think that matters to Wren? Though she hasn’t told me she cares for you, I know she does. Her every feeling is written on her face as much as yours are buried, hidden.”
“You know nothing of the sort, Izannah. Stop making wild assumptions—”
“James!” She tossed up a hand, her impassioned plea more of a shout. “She’s a woman in love with you who’s about to make a terrible mistake!”
“Ease off, Izannah. It’s too late. The engagement has become public.”
“Really? Because some two-bit headline is shouting the news?” She reached for the Gazette, flung it into the fire, and turned her back on him, shoulders slumped.
He watched the paper curl and blacken along with his last hopes. “All that matters is there’s to be a wedding between two consenting adults, regardless of how any third parties feel about the matter. Malachi has proposed and Wren has accepted. The bond between them might grow, given time.”
“Might?” She turned back to him, incredulous, tears streaming down her face. “And might your feelings for her wane over time, James? Or riddle you with regret the rest of your life?”
He looked away from her, caught in a tide of emotion he couldn’t stay on top of. The pain inside him was too unforgiving, too raw to be submerged beneath form and custom and stiff restraint.
“The Lord knows I have my own regrets.” Her voice faded to a thread of misery. “Namely my failed season . . . and now this.”