The plate slipped from Emily’s hand, the shards lying at her feet as she stood staring, disbelieving. As soon as she had opened the door, mouth gaping, eyes wide, Wilfred had shoved her aside and strode into the cabin as if he owned it.
“What are you doing here? How did you find me?” The words tumbled from her dry mouth, like old possessions of which she wished to rid herself.
He glanced around, disdain and disgust crowding his features. “It was easy enough.” He tossed his hat on the table. “I hired a Pinkerton man, of course. A cost you will somehow pay me back. You or Saunders.” His gaze swept the cabin as if Daniel were hiding somewhere. “The Pinkerton learned a woman answering your description had sent a wire, the cost of which was the exact amount missing from the housekeeping funds. Given the amount of food you stole, I assumed you were going on some sort of journey. Anyway, he found you.”
Emily shook her head in disbelief. “And you would come here? It would be worth your while to come all this way to bring me back…back into your servitude, your despicable, overbearing, and unbearable…” She sputtered, searching for the word. “Slavery!” The cloth she was holding slapped down on the table, her anger finally pouring out.
Wilfred didn’t flinch. “Of course. You’re my sister, and I care for you.” A snake-like grin oozed across his face. “Anyway. Is it the Saunders who was at school with me? The same Daniel Saunders?”
She hesitated, then sought the broom to sweep up the shards of broken plate. “Yes.”
“Ha! I thought so. You’d been corresponding with him, had you? But how? How did this come about?”
“None of your business!” Emily marched past him to the waste pail. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” she added, triumphant she had something he couldn’t have, wouldn’t know.
“Don’t fool yourself, my dear. If Daniel Saunders somehow managed to start a correspondence with you, it was only to get back at me. He feels…he believes I was the instrument of his being expelled from Collegiate. He claims I copied exam answers from his paper when it was he who copied from me. He thinks I ruined his life. Naturally, for someone such as that, this is his way of getting back at me.”
So, there it was, the truth at last.
Or was it?
“What? What are you saying?” Emily chilled at the snide look on her brother’s face.
Wilfred shrugged and dragged out a chair, lowered himself into it. “Just that. What I said. He was a charlatan then and is a liar and fraud now. I suppose he has told you he loves you or some such nonsense? Of course, when we get home, I’ll have to tell friends you have been visiting a distant relative, to protect my reputation.”
Emily crossed her arms. “I won’t be going home with you. You must be mad. It isn’t so. None of what you’ve said is true. I’ll ask him.”
“And you would believe that pretender over your own brother? Don’t be a fool!”
Emily paced, tried to think. She darted into the bedroom to find the letter, the letter Daniel had sent to Ethel Darton that had come to her. Could it be? Could it have all been a sham? That he purposefully wrote…showed her the photo of the singer thinking she wouldn’t know... Could it all have been…no, surely not. She knew Daniel, trusted him; he had been honest with her from the start. He was no actor. She tucked the letter back in her carpetbag.
But Daniel had said she must go back. He had repeatedly asserted his intention to marry that woman. At least now he would be saved the money. This much she could give him.
The emptiness of losing him already gripped her like a fever with the fear of never seeing him again. But what use was this yearning if he loved another? No! Best to leave now, save him the cost, save him the sacrifice of his stock to send her back. Go home to her old life, her brother, her fate.
“Get your things now,” Wilfred called through the curtain. So certain, so sure of himself. “I want to get the evening stage. Too bad about not seeing Saunders again, of course. I would have liked to see his face when—”
“Emily, I’ve—” The door flew open and a gasp escaped Daniel as he confronted his old enemy. He froze.
“Hello, Saunders.” Wilfred got to his feet. “I see you’ve ended up where you were always meant to be. In the middle of nowhere.”
Daniel’s fist flew into the ugly visage of Wilfred Darling. The city man lost his footing, flying back into the cupboard holding Daniel’s mother’s china. Emily rushed to stop the cabinet from falling. Her tiny fist hit the wall, and both men looked over.
“That was unnecessary, Daniel! Fighting won’t help.”
“Well, it helped me,” he snarled as he cracked his knuckles and glared at her.
“He wants me to go back with him.”
Daniel shoved a chair, his face tight. “Go back? With that? To that? Ha!”
“He says you were expelled from Collegiate, you cheated on exams and were expelled,” she sputtered out.
“I cheated? I cheated! He lied!” Daniel’s voice rose in pitch, his anger coursing through him. “He told the headmaster I had copied his answers, but it was him. He copied my paper, set me up. I was eighteen, in my last year with a place at university.”
“He says you have me here to get back at him.” Hands on hips, Emily’s foot tapped like the ticks of a clock.
“What? What! How could I…you think I wrote to Ethel Darton knowing the letter would find you?”
“Ethel Darton, eh?” Wilfred held his stomach as he laughed with the information. “You were writing to Ethel Darton?” He shuffled to his feet. “Get your things,” he ordered his sister, dabbing at his face with a handkerchief. “I can sue you for this, Saunders. Although, I suspect, in this godforsaken country, there won’t be much point.”
“Emily, wait!”
But she ignored him, slipped behind the sheer partition and hurried to gather her belongings.
Confounded, Daniel stepped toward Wilfred. “What do you know about Ethel Darton?”
“Fool. Why should I tell you?” he gloated, though never taking his gaze from the partition where his sister had disappeared. “Emily, hurry now,” he called over his shoulder. “We mustn’t miss the stage.”
Daniel couldn’t get hold of any of this in his mind. Emily leaving. Her brother here—and knowing Ethel Darton. His world spun around him. And he hadn’t as yet told her he had written.
Rage overcame him, boiled up. He grabbed Wilfred by the collar. “Tell me who the hell Ethel Darton is. How do you know her?”
“Every man in New York knows her. She’s a famous…how shall I put it politely? Oh, yes, I needn’t bother about such things with you. She’s a paid consort or, in your world, a whore.”
“But…” Daniel stammered. “A…whore? I don’t…” He sank into a chair as Wilfred straightened his jacket and collected his hat.
He’d been such a fool, such a fool. How could he not have known?
Emily stood by the partition, her carpetbag in her hand. Tears began to streak her face.
“I’m leaving.” She waited, put the bag down for a moment. “I’m going.” Another moment passed. “I’m leaving with Wilfred.”
The minutes ticked away.
Daniel’s chin rested on his fist as he stared straight ahead. The loneliness he had known began its slow return to fill him like breath. Just a word, if he could just say something. But, no, it was too late. After all, who would want such a fool as he?
Emily lifted her bag once more. “Well, then,” she said quietly.
“Ah!” Wilfred took up the photograph still lying there on the table. “Lillie Langtry. The Jersey Lily. I remember her tour of America well. Photographs of her all over the place. Except out here, I suspect. Back in ’82, wasn’t it? Or was it ’83?” He tossed the photo back on the table. “Come, Emily. I must return the buggy to the livery before we get the stage.”
Like a wounded animal, immobile in his place, even as she left, Daniel sat with his head in his hands until evening crept around him and then was stolen by night.
How could he have stopped Emily when it would’ve appeared to her he only wanted her now Ethel had been exposed for what she was? He had never told her he had written to the woman that morning, as she slept, long before Wilfred had appeared. And how could she want him now, anyway, he who had been duped, been so terribly reckless in so many different ways?
Fool.
More a fool, for he had never told her he loved her.