When the train pulled out of the station at eight, Adam allowed himself a small sigh of relief. Henry had reported that he’d seen no sign of Isolde and privately told Adam he’d detected no coffin being loaded onto the baggage cars—both remote possibilities, but not to be disregarded. The morning was sunny and still slightly cool, the horses and their grooms were settled in the stable car, Lucie and Flora were playing cards, Mrs. Richards was arranging supplies in the small kitchen. There was a very good possibility they could travel west without incident. A gratifying prospect at such short notice. He was in extreme good humor.
Once they arrived at the railhead, complications might ensue; Ned Storham could be waiting. He would be apprised of his brother’s death by then, but Adam had already notified James and expected an escort to see them home.
Four days on the train, another four on the trail, he thought, the rhythm of the wheels pulsing under his booted feet as he stood on the small open platform between his traveling coach and stable car. Once they reached his ranch, they were safe. He could protect his valley from attack.
“Papa, come play with us,” Lucie shouted through the open door. “Flora is showing me a new game.”
“In a minute,” Adam replied, taking one last look at the countryside passing by. Peaceful, bucolic—a pleasant change from his night past. He allowed his fatigue to seep into his consciousness. Lord, he was tired. He’d hardly slept in days.
“Lucie has your talent for cards,” Flora said, smiling up at him as he walked in to join them. “She already knows all the rules, and we’ve been playing for only ten minutes.”
“She has a good teacher,” Adam said, dropping into a chair beside Flora, his gaze affectionate. “Deal me in, and I’ll see if I can make it a little harder for you two to win.”
They played for another half hour while the smells of breakfast cooking wafted in from the kitchen, both adults taking pleasure in Lucie’s obvious delight, both acutely aware, as well, of each other.
Their eyes met over their cards and they’d smile, a private, lazy smile. And when they spoke, their voices seemed hushed in a sweet intimacy. Adam’s railcar offered shelter from the world, protection from the public, from the too recent showy glitter of the beau monde. They were isolated, a small family again, Lucie’s busy chatter a familiar, pleasing melody.
“I’ll be glad to get back to the ranch,” Adam said as Lucie explained her cards to Baby DeeDee, his voice conveying infinitely more meaning than the simple words.
“It was nice, wasn’t it?” Flora replied, understanding.
“I’ve never really had a family of my own.” His eyes held a sweet tenderness.
“I’ve never had a family,” Flora murmured.
His smile offered cloudless pleasure. “You have one now.”
That night after Lucie had been tucked in, when Mrs. Richards and Henry had retired, when the only sound in the plush sitting room was the perpetual cadence of the wheels on the rails, Adam gazed at Flora seated across from him and softly said, “I’ve been watching the clock since dinner. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve slept with you?”
Flora nodded, suddenly unable to speak, acutely sensitive of his nearness, disquieted by her own intense need. They were alone but not alone, and he was tantalizing. Adam was barefoot in the summer heat, dressed casually in beige linen trousers and a white shirt, his hair tied back, his lounging pose etched on her mind as if longing were caustic.
“Are you bothered by the”—his head tipped toward the closed bedroom doors—“close quarters?”
She shook her head no and murmured, “A little,” her agitation apparent.
“No one will … interfere,” he quietly said.
“On orders?” She blushed at the thought of having their lovemaking discussed.
“No.” He didn’t elaborate, he only added, “I haven’t seen you in that shade of blue before. Your gown’s lovely.”
“Sarah bought it for me. She said men like blue.” Her cheeks flushed a deeper rose hue. “I didn’t wear it tonight because of … that.… I mean … I wasn’t—” She nervously stopped, her gaze dropping before Adam’s mild scrutiny.
“Does it seem different now?” he softly queried.
She nodded before she looked up, and when she spoke, her voice held a tremulous quality. “It’s not playing anymore, is it? Or teasing flirtation, or a summer liaison that ends when autumn comes. I’m not sure suddenly about …”
“A lifetime commitment?” His voice was carefully modulated.
“I’ve traveled as long as I can remember, Adam,” she said in a very small voice. “I’ve never stayed in one place for any length of time.” Her fingers unconsciously pleated the soft lawn of her skirt as she spoke. “What if I miss my research, the new cultures, my traveling?”
“Why don’t we travel together?” He spoke casually, but his gaze was watchful; he already had a wife who preferred traveling alone.
Flora’s restless fingers stilled. “You wouldn’t mind?”
He smiled. “I’d love to go. Maybe not right away,” he added, “because Ned Storham is going to be one helluva problem for a while, but in a few months, six months, no more than a year, either he wins or I do, and then you can take me anywhere you want.”
“I love you so much.…” Her eyes filled with tears. “I thought you’d want me to—”
“—give up everything?” He slowly shook his head. “Why would I want you to change when I fell in love with a strong, wild, talented woman who’s spent a good part of her life trying to understand mankind’s common bonds? Don’t change. Just let me share your adventures.”
Jumping up, Flora threw herself into his lap, flung her arms around his neck, and hugged him fiercely. Covering his face with kisses, she laughed and cried and told him how much she loved him in the Absarokee words she’d learned from the women in Four Chiefs’s camp.
Adam held her close, his eyes wet with emotion, some of the soft words achingly familiar, bringing back long-ago memories of childhood and mother love, other phrases more specifically those of a woman to her lover, blissful, joyous sounds, teasing, coaxing—but all of them words of his people through timeless ages. And for the first time he fully understood the profundity of love, its depth and breadth and fullness, as if a lifelong quest were over.
The world was new for them that night. Love was new. Their bodies and souls untouched by the past, the sensation of bliss so intense, so graphic, Adam wrote the word on the steamy compartment window late that night and, lying on his back with his arms flung over his head, trying to catch his breath, he murmured, “Consider that written in diamonds.…”
Flora playfully licked her finger and swiftly wrote the word on his chest while he smiled at her.
“You’re branded mine …,” she breathlessly said, falling on top of him and kissing his fine, straight nose. “I hope you’re available for the next millennium.”
“For you I am.”
“Just for me?” A female possessive demand, an absolutely new sensation for Flora Bonham.
“Only for you.…” He grinned. “Although I may suffocate soon from the heat. Let me open the window.”
“They’ll hear,” she whispered as if the other occupants of the car were listening.
“Everyone’s sleeping. The train wheels are so noisy, a gunshot would go unnoticed. You’re supposed to be grown-up and sophisticated.” His grin widened as he looked up into her indecisive face. “But if you don’t want to, I’ll gladly melt away for love.”
“The wheels are rather loud.”
“I’ll just raise the window partway.”
“How far?”
“Only enough for your newfound modesty.”
“The other bedrooms are so close.”
He grinned. “I won’t let you scream.”
She punched him.
He tweaked her curls.
And the lighthearted melee began. In the rolling tussle Adam shoved the window wide-open, then stopped Flora’s protest with a heated kiss, and before very long thoughts of propriety had vanished from her mind.
The night air swept into the small bedroom, washing over the rumpled bed and sweat-sheened occupants, bringing in the sweet smell of new-cut hay and clover, the rush of coolness mingling with the racing heat of their passion.
The first night together after their long separation was the stuff of dreams, sumptuous and balmy and tender.
It was also feverish tumult and heat.
It was perfect love.
Adam fell into an exhausted sleep toward morning, his lapse into slumber occurring with split-second suddenness. One minute he was talking to Flora, and when she turned back from picking up a pillow that had fallen to the floor, he was asleep.
He lay facedown on the bed without a pillow or covers, his arms gracefully framing his head, his stark profile vivid on white linen, his muscled back awesome in its fluid power, his long athletic legs sprawled wide, his feet dangling over the end of the bed.
“You’re mine,” Flora whispered, an inescapable sense of possession overwhelming her. And leaning over, she gently kissed his cheek.
He stirred in his sleep and his hand reached out for her.
Twining her fingers through his, she murmured, “I’m here.”
A faint smile appeared on his beautiful mouth, and he gently squeezed her fingers.
It seemed as if they inhabited their own private world as the train raced west, the following two days ones of peace and rest and contentment. They didn’t exit the coach at any of the train’s scheduled stops, for Adam was concerned with leaving a trail. He wasn’t sure if Frank had come to Saratoga alone or with cohorts, but if they were being followed, he wanted as little evidence as possible of their route. But in Chicago’s bustling station, as they were waiting to depart, Lucie spied a vendor with pink lemonade hawking her wares.
“I want pink lemonade, Papa!” she cried. “Hurry, hurry, she’s walking away!”
They were all seated in the small parlor section with the windows opened wide to mitigate the sultry August heat, watching the mass of humanity streaming by on the concourse.
Responding to his daughter’s urgency, Adam went to the window and called the vendor over.
“I want a big drink, Papa. I love pink lemonade,” Lucie urged.
Adam smiled, purchased a large cup of lemonade, and handed it to her.
“Look! There’s ice too. This is the bestest.” And she drank a big swallow. After several more laudatory comments and some coaxing, Adam obligingly drank some of the lemonade too. Flora declined the invitation to taste it, pointing to her glass of iced tea Mrs. Richards had just brought in.
By sunset they’d cleared the station, the city, and its straggling outskirts and were well out in the country again, where they enjoyed the passing scenery over dinner.
Shortly after their meal Lucie vomited. Adam was instantly alarmed, although he cautioned himself to a more cool-headed reaction; she’d probably just eaten something that hadn’t agreed with her. But summer fevers were dangerous, he knew, and particularly lethal to young and old. Carrying Lucie to her bedroom, he helped put her to bed and then sat with her, holding her hand, wishing they were closer to home, where the air was clean and fresh, knowing they had six more days of travel to reach their valley.
Flora read to Lucie when she asked for a story, her little-girl voice a startling wisp of sound, drastically altered from her normal spirited tone. She lay very still and pale on her bed, her dark eyes listless, her small hand limp in her father’s grasp.
“I’m so thirsty, Papa,” she whispered, but when she was given water, it didn’t stay down, and by evening, after retching several more times, she was so weak she couldn’t raise her head. Her pulse had weakened, the surface of her body had become cold, intense cramps were affecting her legs and arms. She barely opened her eyes now, and her skin was dry, indication of the intense draining away of body fluids.
Adam sat beside the bed, terrified by Lucie’s rapid deterioration, by her stillness. “This train has to be stopped,” he said, his voice absolute, fear coiled tight in his stomach. “We need a doctor.”
“I’ll have Henry tell the engineer we need a doctor in the nearest town,” Flora said, rising from her seat at the foot of the bed. Exiting the room at a half run, she moved through the parlor in search of Henry. Fearful of Lucie’s symptoms, she hadn’t dared voice her suspicions. She didn’t have the expertise to diagnose or treat cholera, and Adam was already wild with worry.
“We’ll find a doctor soon,” Adam whispered to Lucie, gently stroking her forehead, her cool skin frightening to the touch. “Papa’s here, I’m right here, the doctor will know what to do, we’re almost there …” His voice dropped to a whisper. “And then we’re going home.…”
When Henry appeared in the doorway a few minutes later, Adam looked up and asked, “How long?” his voice taut with alarm.
“Forty miles. The engineer will telegraph ahead to have the doctor at the station. Another half hour,” Henry sympathetically said. He recognized cholera too; he’d seen it often in their travels.
Adam nodded, his attention immediately returned to his daughter, oblivious to everything but the fearful threat to her life. The drastic change in her condition in so short a time terrified him, and head bowed, he silently prayed to The One Who Made All Things, asking his spirits to hear him even in a strange, faraway land. “I need your help, Ah-badt-dadt-deah, and your strength to save my only child. She’s my sunshine and happiness, the sweet promise of my life. Please hear me tonight, send me your help. She’s so young,” he whispered.
He could still remember the incredible joy he’d felt when he’d first held his daughter in his arms. Cloudy had brought her in to him minutes after her birth and had said, “She’s yours now, Monsieur le Comte. We’ll see that she’s happy, won’t we?” Lucie’s eyes had been wide-open, and she’d gazed up at him from a cocoon of soft white blankets with such a pensive earnestness, he thought she must have understood Cloudy’s words. And he’d whispered to the pink-cheeked baby, “Welcome to Aspen Valley, Lucie Serre. And Cloudy’s wrong. You’re going to make us happy.”
She’d instantly become the center of his life, and he’d learned under Cloudy’s strict tutelage how to bathe her and feed her and change her nappies. He sang his own songs to her when he rocked her to sleep—Absarokee lullabies his mother had sung to him.
He’d listened to her first word—“horse”; he’d been there to catch her after her shaky first step. And he’d helped teach her to ride her first pony when she was two. She always woke him up in the morning, kept him company at meals, recited her lessons to him. And made him smile.
He couldn’t lose her.
His world would fall into darkness.
Unclasping his earrings, he slid them from his ears and carefully placed them beside her pillow. “Save her, Ah-badt-dadt-deah,” he murmured. “She’s my life.”
Flora fought back tears at the sight of her betrothed relinquishing, to save his daughter, the talisman that protected his life. His anguish tore at her heart, and she longed to hold him in her arms. But she stood quietly in the doorway, not wishing to interfere, knowing he was in his own world with Lucie.
“Breathe, darling,” Adam whispered, bent low over her still form. “Keep breathing … that’s a good girl.” He watched intently for her breath, holding his own as he scrutinized her tiny chest. And then an almost infinitesimal movement lifted the blanket. “That’s Papa’s girl,” he murmured, his relief trembling in his deep voice. “Breathe again, there, that’s right … now again …” as if he could will the air into her lungs.
The doctor was waiting when their railcars were detached onto a siding at Walker. She was a tall, strong, forthright woman who took one look at Lucie’s blue coloring and dry skin and pronounced the dread word “cholera” without evasion. “It’s prevalent this time of year,” she said with matter-of-fact clarity. “August and September are our worst months, but if we keep everything absolutely sanitary, make sure the water is boiled, and see that this little girl keeps down some liquids,” she went on, the certainty in her tone bringing immediate comfort to everyone, “we’ll manage to have you on your way in a week.”
The doctor was rummaging through her bag as she spoke, searching for some aromatic powder of chalk. “Knew I had some,” she exclaimed, pulling out a glass bottle. “Just a touch of opium in the chalk will allay the pain and help the medicine to stay in her stomach,” she declared. “How are you feeling, Mr. Serre?” she inquired, her voice casual but her gaze clinically acute.
“I’m fine,” Adam said. “Particularly now,” he added, his heartened spirits obvious. “Now, are you certain the medicine will—”
“She’s a sturdy young child, Mr. Serre,” the gray-haired doctor interrupted. “Helps a lot when they’re not frail. She’ll be better in a few days. Looks like you need some rest too.”
“Lucie’s my only child.”
It was an answer the doctor understood. “Once she’s kept some water down, you might want to think about some sleep,” she suggested. “The next few days will be tiring.”
“Could you stay here until Lucie is well?” Adam asked.
He didn’t say “Name your price.” because he was too courteous, but plainly that’s what he meant, Dorothea Potts reflected, and one glance around the elegantly appointed railcar gave graphic indication of his wealth. Not to mention his stable car alongside on the siding. Or the beautiful English lady who had been introduced without explanation simply as Lady Flora Bonham. Decidedly these were people of means.
“I can stay as long as other patients don’t need me, but I do keep office hours, Mr. Serre. This community depends on me.”
“Of course, I understand,” he politely said. “Whatever you can arrange will be appreciated.”
A short time later, after Lucie had taken her medicine, kept it down, and fallen back to sleep, they were seated in the small parlor going over the general progress of the disease.
“Her normal color will start coming back first,” Dr. Potts said. “We should notice that by tomorrow. Another day or so and she’ll feel like some food again. Something simple and plain. And I don’t want to be alarmist, Mr. Serre,” the doctor went on, “but you’re going to be mighty sick too from the looks of it. Feeling nauseated, I’d bet,” she added, gazing at him with a practiced eye.
“I don’t think so.”
“Can’t fight it off that easily, Mr. Serre. Here, let me take your pulse.” And after monitoring it for an interval, she said, “Why don’t I have some nursing help sent out here? You’re going to be down in bed by nightfall. We don’t quarantine anymore, but it’s hard work keeping everything clean.”
“I have to take care of Lucie,” Adam replied, his voice carefully modulated. “I can’t afford to be sick.”
The doctor smiled. “Whatever you say, Mr. Serre, but your daughter will most likely be sleeping peacefully through the night now. How are you holding up, Lady Flora?” Dr. Potts asked.
“I still feel well. I think it’s possible pink lemonade may have been the culprit. Adam and Lucie drank some from a vendor at the station in Chicago,” Flora explained.
“You might be lucky enough to avoid it, then,” the doctor declared, “but sanitation is absolutely essential. Carbolic acid, lots of soap and water, boiled water for everything.”
“I’ll be scrupulously careful,” Flora promised, already aware of the merits of sanitation with cholera. She and her father had stayed with one of three Russian regiments bivouacked near Samarkand in the summer of sixty-five, when cholera was rampant and killing so many. But the officer in charge of the regiment hosting them had sentries guarding the stream running through camp, allowing no one near the water; all water for washing and drinking had to be boiled first by the cooks. Not one member of his regiment contracted cholera, while half the men in the other two regiments camped in the same vicinity died.15
The doctor stayed with them until Henry appeared with two nurses he’d been sent to fetch—two hearty farm girls who looked so capable, Flora’s fears were instantly allayed.
Adam had insisted on sitting with Lucy until her breathing stabilized, although he looked increasingly afflicted. At midnight he’d collapsed precisely as the doctor had predicted.
The course of his illness was as swift as it had been with Lucie, and by midmorning Adam was reduced to a state of prostration. He called for Lucie in his opium dreams, his anxiety poignant, and when Flora took his hand and spoke to him, he opened his eyes and whispered in a thready rasp, “Lucie has to get home.”
“In a few days we’ll all be home,” Flora reassured him. “Lucie’s much better.” She hadn’t vomited since morning, and her skin was less blue.
“Have to get there before Ned,” he muttered.
“Ned Storham?”
“Have to get there before Ned.” He seemed not to have heard her. His gaze turned suddenly lucid. “How’s Lucie? Is the doctor here?”
“Lucie’s improved,” Flora gently said, having repeated her message numerous times already. “The doctor’s sitting with her.”
“Good.” Grimacing as cramps attacked his arms and legs, Adam groaned deep in his throat, a tormented sound, and then his eyes fell shut again, overcome by the opium in his bloodstream.
The next three days were a regimen of medicines and forcing liquids as the effects of the disease ran its course, of snatched sleep and vigilance to see that neither patient relapsed—a possibility, Dr. Potts warned. Without proper convalescence patients could relapse up to three weeks after an apparent cure. The doctor stayed as often as she could, and the local ladies saw that food was prepared, linens were clean, the patients bathed. Flora first knew with certainty Adam was on the mend when he opened his eyes the morning of their fourth day in Walker, looked up at the strange woman bathing him, and shouted, “Flora!” in a powerful voice that had none of the husky whisper synonymous with cholera.
When Flora appeared at a run, he politely said to the stranger, “Excuse us for a moment,” and when the lady left the bedroom, he relaxed his grip on the sheet pulled up to his neck and murmured, “Who the hell was that?”
“A nurse. You’re feeling better,” Flora replied with a smile.
“Not quite well enough for that kind of shock,” he grumbled. “I’ll bathe myself from now on. Where are we? Is Lucie all right?” He tried to sit up as he suddenly remembered his daughter’s illness, but weakened by the disease, he fell back in a sprawl. “Is she alive?” he whispered, the strain of any sudden moves more than his ravaged body could sustain. “Tell me.”
“She’s very much alive, darling, and feeling very well. We’ve had to try to keep her out of your room since yesterday, when she decided she’d been in bed long enough.”
“I want to see her.” An intense longing resonated in his voice.
When Lucie came running into his bedroom a few moments later, he smiled and opened his arms. Lucie had the rosy glow of health again, and with a cheerful smile and her black curls bouncing, she threw herself into his arms.
“It was so-o-o scary, Papa, when you were sick,” she lamented, hugging him tight.
“I know,” Adam murmured, holding her small body close. “You were sick first, and I was scared too.”
Flora swallowed a lump in her throat, the two dark heads pressed together, the small arms wrapped tight around Adam’s neck a poignant sight. Aware of her own special bond with her father, she understood how Lucie depended on Adam’s love.
“Flora took care of us, Cook said,” Lucie proclaimed, turning around to beam at Flora, her exclamatory delivery restored with her health. Bouncing into a comfortable position beside her father, she said, bright-eyed and cheerful, “You should marry her, Papa, and then we can always be together. Wouldn’t that be perfect?”
Adam’s smile touched Flora, its message private, bewitching. “That would be perfect,” he softly said.
“You can get ’vorced,” Lucie proposed, dangling her legs over the side of the bed and swinging them beneath the ruffle of her nightgown. “Montoya’s ’vorced and so is Ben or he was. He’s not ’vorced now,” she emphasized in case her father wasn’t following her explanation. “He’s married to Cook. So why don’t you, Papa?” she casually said, having found what she considered a perfectly workable solution.
“It’s a good idea, darling. We’ll have to think about it.”
“I’m hungry,” Lucie proclaimed, jumping from the bed, divorce abandoned to more important considerations. She stopped as if remembering her manners. “Would you like something to eat, Papa? Cook has chocolate cake, and the doctor said I can have one teeny piece if I eat all my broth.”
Chocolate cake was beyond his palate at the moment; Adam was thinking more along the lines of a glass of water. “Maybe later,” he answered, smiling at the familiar image of his daughter bouncing from foot to foot. “Enjoy your treat.”
“You definitely look on the mend,” Flora said when Lucie had gone. “How do you feel?”
“Almost good enough for chocolate cake,” he said lightly, and then he added in a more grave tone, “I can’t thank you enough for all your help. You’ve had an ordeal.”
“The nurses did most of the work.”
“So modest,” he said with a smile. “When did you sleep last?”
She shrugged. “I slept.”
“I’m not used to this, you know. You’re spoiling us.”
Leaning against the doorjamb, one of Mrs. Richards’s aprons over her couturier gown, Flora said with a faint smile, “Anyone would do the same.”
No, he thought, Isolde would have jumped ship at the first sign of illness. She’d never sat with Lucie even when Lucie was healthy. Children annoyed her. “No, they wouldn’t,” he quietly said. “I’m very grateful and I’m very lucky to have found you,” he softly added.
“We found each other,” Flora replied, smiling. “With a little help from Papa and Aunt Sarah.”
“An energetic family,” Adam teased.
“We believe in results,” Flora said with a grin.
“Then I’d better get well,” Adam lazily drawled.
By the next day Adam’s recuperation had progressed so well, he was taking issue with the convalescent diet of light soups, milk, and farina. “I think Dr. Potts has been an angel of mercy, but she probably has other patients who need her more,” he pointedly remarked, gazing at his bowl of cooked farina with a critical eye. “I’ll thank her when she returns from her office hours today. Why doesn’t Henry go into town and get a bank draft to cover her charges?” He pushed the bowl away. “You have to be sick to eat this. I don’t suppose there are buffalo ribs in town,” he said.
On Adam’s orders Henry made arrangements at the station that afternoon for their railcars to be attached to the morning train. Luckily the doctor pronounced them healthy enough for travel, for Flora had the distinct impression they would be leaving regardless of her opinion. Shortly after five the following day, just as the sun lightened the sky, they resumed their journey home.
That put them two days behind Isolde, who was also traveling west on the Union Pacific. The Comtesse de Chastellux had a variety of reasons for returning to Montana, and none of them included divorce.
A coffin containing Frank Storham’s body was transported in the baggage car of the same train Isolde occupied, while his brother Ned was riding south to the railhead to pick up Frank’s remains.
James and the Earl of Haldane had arrived in Cheyenne only to find a second telegram waiting at the Forsyth Hotel with news of the delay due to illness. The postponement increased the chances that Ned Storham might arrive at the railhead before Adam.
James was hoping to avoid that volatile confrontation.