CHAPTER

37

Sleeping Beauty awakes.”

I lay on a bench in a second-class compartment, my head hitting the wooden wall with each sway of the train. Rosemond watched me from the bench opposite.

I rubbed my face and winced in pain.

“Sorry about the shiner,” she said, “but you almost got us found out. It’ll heal soon enough.”

With shaky arms, I pushed myself into a sitting position. “What’s going on? Where are we?”

“Somewhere west of Independence.”

“West?” I was moving backward.

Disjointed images flickered through my mind. Being carried by a large, dark-skinned man. Sleeping in a soft bed. A warm stone. My undergarments being changed. Laudanum and whisky being forced down me.

Bile rose in my throat. I jumped up from the bench, slid open the door on the second try, and stumbled down the hall and out onto the small platform between the trains before wretching over the side. I leaned my head on the iron rail and spit. I took a couple of deep breaths to settle my stomach, but vomiting seemed to make me more nauseated. I wretched over the side of the train again, tasting laudanum. I wiped the back of my mouth with my hand and returned to the compartment. I fell heavily into my seat and leaned my head against the glass, completely exhausted.

“Kindle told me you had a penchant for the dramatic.”

I stared at the whore. “Where are you taking me?”

“To a new beginning.”

“Where?”

Rosemond clicked her tongue. “So many questions.” She tilted her head to the side and seemed to make up her mind. “It’s harmless for you to know. We’re going to Boulder. To start a new life. If you’re lucky, you might be able to start a medical practice there. We’ll have to check the lay of the land, first.”

“Kindle knows where we’re going?”

“It’s not safe for you if he knows. When he’s acquitted, I’ll telegram him.”

My eyes settled on my mother’s necklace hanging around the whore’s neck. She touched it and said, “It’s too much, I know. But, I thought you would appreciate it.”

Kindle putting me in the hands of this whore was incomprehensible. He’d trusted my life to a woman who’d tried to blackmail me hours earlier? She watched me with a curious expression, as if she knew precisely the route my thoughts were taking. One corner of her mouth quirked up when I realized I knew very little about the depth of her relationship with Kindle.

My head pounded and my mouth watered with a craving for laudanum. My tongue was thick when I spoke. “If you’re lying to me, I’ll kill you.”

Rosemond grinned. “I’d be disappointed if you didn’t try.”

Out the window I watched the eastern horizon darken and finally go black as the train rolled west, away from the man I loved.