Brides of Prairie Gold (48 page)

On the third day into the Blue Mountains, they all watched helplessly as an improvised winch snapped and the men's cook wagon hurtled end over end down the mountainside, spilling provisions and utensils.

Silently and trembling with exhaustion, everyone helped Smokey Joe salvage what he could. Then, shaking with anger and frustration, Cody agreed to two days' rest so Heck Kelsey could repair damaged wagons and rig a cart to haul the equipment Smokey Joe had been able to recover.

Since Cora had been driving Augusta's wagon while Perrin's arm healed, Cora decided to move back into Augusta's wagon. "It just makes sense in terms of convenience."

Surprisingly, Augusta had agreed to the suggestion, and seemed, in fact, to welcome Cora's return.

"Augusta's well enough to drive her own wagon," Perrin commented. Pausing to catch her breath, she set down the box she was helping Cora move, then sat on a tree stump and gently rubbed the arm where she'd been shot.

Instinctively, she scanned the firs, looking to see if anyone watched her, perhaps with a carbine in his or her hands. But she saw nothing except the distant icy cone of Mount Hood and another snowcapped peak she couldn't name. Seeing the white glint of sunlight on snow called her attention to the chill in the mountain air, and she pulled her shawl more closely around her body. These, the last days of August, felt more like late autumn than the end of summer.

"Perrin?" Cora sat down beside her. "I been doing a lot of thinking since we killed that Eaggleston. And I'm trying to make amends where amends are needed. That's why I'm going back to Augusta. To make up for sending Eaggleston after her." A flush of regret tinted her cheeks. "I owe you amends too. I'm sorry I told about you and Captain Snow. My mouth just got going and I told everything without thinking how some of them might take it. You been decent to me, and I'm just sick at heart that I've been the cause of so much trouble."

Perrin waved a hand, mildly astonished that she still possessed the energy to lift it. The last few days had been exhausting. They had all lost weight. "No one can fault you for telling the truth," she said.

Cora used the edge of her shawl to mop sweat off her brow. The altitude brought perspiration with every effort. "Well, it seems a shame," she said. "Now that you aren't the representative and don't have to meet with the captain everyday well, I ain't the only one who's noticed there ain't nothing between you two. And maybe I ain't the only one who's starting to feel ashamed at how we been treating you too. What are you going to do when we get to Oregon?"

Perrin kept her eyes on the distant snowy caps. "I've been thinking about that. Hilda believes there will be many opportunities for women and I agree with her. The territory needs teachers. Or I could cook or make a living taking in wash. Maybe I'll save what money I can and eventually try California."

Cora nodded. "Me, I'm glad to know there's a husband waiting. I never thought I'd have one." Bending, she picked up her box of belongings. "I guess it's hard for someone like me to understand why you'd choose to take in wash rather than a husband. My Ma took in wash. It's a hard job."

"So is marriage," Perrin said quietly.

Augusta saw them coming through the fir and alders. Turning, she frowned into the mirror hung on the side of the wagon. The distinctive perfect Boyd nose was crooked now. And when she smiled, which she seldom did, she exposed two gaps where small white teeth had been. A tiny but noticeable scar trailed from the corner of her lips across her chin.

Every day she practiced smiling without exposing her teeth. She was objective enough to know that her bridegroom would still find her attractive, but she would never again be considered stunning. She had paid for her theft with her beauty. And she would pay for her father's mistakes by surrendering the Boyd name to Owen Clampet.

Mrs. Owen Clampet. Augusta Clampet. The combinations offended her ear and her heart. Clampet sounded like a peasant's name. She stared at her missing teeth in the mirror.

At the end of this arduous, hideous journey, she would have lost everything on which she based her sense of self and importance.

"I've made space for your things in the wagon," she called to Cora, turning in disgust from the mirror. The sound of birds and the noise of Heck Kelsey's hammer seemed very loud as Perrin and Cora approached. Augusta drew a deep breath and pressed her hands together. She was convinced they stared critically at her nose and gloated over the ugly gaps between her teeth.

"I haven't had a chance to say this before," she began. She had thought about what she would say, but the rehearsal didn't make it easier. She wasn't accustomed to being in someone's debt. "Thank you for saving my life."

Cora stopped near the battered front wheel of the wagon. "I have to know. Did you do it?" she asked bluntly, staring at Augusta's nose. "Did you steal that man's money?"

Augusta released a long low breath. Perrin shot a glance at Cora, but she too waited for Augusta's reply. "Yes," she said quietly.

It was the hardest one word she had ever spoken, and it released a flood of moisture beneath her arms. Shame pulsed in her face and dampened her eyes. But she owed them the truth. Without the foolhardy courage of these two women, she would be dead now.

She lowered her head. "My father invested badly and lost his fortune. Then he embezzled from his own bank. When he was about to be discovered, he hanged himself." She touched shaking fingertips to her forehead. Oddly, a hard knot unraveled inside and began to crumble away. To her astonishment, truth was easing the cramps she had suffered from the moment she learned of her father's death.

"I sold everything and paid his debts. I managed to keep his crime private." Raising her head, she faced Perrin and Cora, old enemies both, as she had never faced anyone else, stripped bare of pride. "I began this trip with forty dollars. It's all that was left of the Boyd fortune."

A long sigh collapsed Perrin's chest, and she sat on the wagon tongue. The defiance disappeared from Cora's eyes, and she leaned against the wheel.

"We weren't supposed to come unless we had at least two hundred dollars," Perrin stated in a level voice.

Augusta studied her face, but there was no sign of gloating. "It was either accept a husband in Oregon or become a beggar on the streets of Chastity. I had to come whether I had enough money or not."

Perrin nodded, understanding filling her large dark eyes.

And suddenly, truly for the first time, Augusta understood how an unmarried woman could be desperate enough to invite a man to destroy her reputation. "Oh, God," she whispered. "If I'd stayed in Chastity, it might have happened to me!"

"But it didn't," Perrin said quietly, grasping where her thoughts had led.

"I blamed you." Shaking, she stared at Perrin's tired face. "I hated you. But there was nothing else for you, was there?"

"Not then." Perrin stood. "And maybe there was nothing else for you but to take the Eagglestons' money when you found it. If it's any comfort, none of the others believe that you took the money." She glanced at Cora. "And they won't hear anything more from either of us."

Absurdly, astonishingly, she discovered that she didn't care what the others thought, but something inside her needed Perrin Waverly's understanding. Tears swam in her eyes.

"Why?" she whispered. "Why did you attack him and risk getting killed to help someone who hated you? Why did you do that for me?"

Augusta had asked herself this question over and over while she suffered the pain of healing. She had done nothing but revile Perrin from the first. She had done her best to incite the others against Perrin Waverly, had hated and despised her. She had blamed Perrin as the source of her misfortune and had wished her dead. Even as she thought Eaggleston was killing her, Augusta had hated this courageous woman. And Perrin had known it. Yet she rushed forward and placed herself in dire peril in an attempt to help someone who would have died hating her with the last breath.

Perrin gazed at her for a long time. "Mostly I did it for me," she said finally. "Because I couldn't live with myself if I stood by while a man beat a woman to death."

"Even if it meant that you might die too? Even if that woman was your sworn enemy?" Augusta whispered. There was nothing in her experience to help her understand Perrin's reasoning. "Even if that woman cursed you with her dying breath?"

"And I did it because you asked me to. For once in your life you asked for help."

Cora's smile broke the tension. "Seems like that bastard shoulda been afraid of us, if you ask me." She tossed her dark head and her eyes flashed triumph. "We're here and he ain't! Aren't. Isn't?"

Augusta drew herself up. She would never truly understand Perrin Waverly. And she needed time to reconsider her father's involvement in Perrin's ruin. But she owed this woman her life. Moreover, in an odd turn of fate, she was probably the only bride who could say the following words and mean them right now. "Welcome to my wagon and my campsite. I'm glad you're here."

Sudden tears appeared in Perrin's eyes.

"I made tea. I'd be happy if you both would join me."

"A cup of tea is small payment for all that I owe you," Augusta interrupted. Her need was as great as Perrin's. She was so grateful to have company, even the company of women she had previously despised. "I haven't had the opportunity to thank you for driving my wagon while I recovered. And Cora I'm glad you've come back. You do know it will be different than before, don't you? Weil share the work."

Cora studied her. "It was me that sicced Eaggleston on you. I ain't yet told you I'm sorry, but I am."

"I know. That's behind us now."

Later that night, after the supper dishes were scrubbed and the breakfast things laid out, Augusta and Cora sat by the embers, inhaling the scent of woodsmoke instead of burning chips and listening as the camp settled for the night.

"You're different now," Cora said, breaking the silence. "More like a real person, if you know what I mean. No offense."

A ghost of a smile touched Augusta's closed lips. "No offense taken." The temperature was dropping. They had pulled out the boxes of winter clothing and extracted heavier shawls. "You probably won't believe this, but I'm genuinely sorry they removed Perrin as the women's representative. She helped all of us at one time or another. Losing the position must have hurt her badly."

"I wish I hadn't been part of it. She loves Captain Snow," Cora added in a matter-of-fact voice.

"Oh." Augusta blinked. As old habits died hard, the word harlot leaped into her mind. She shoved it aside with difficulty. If she had learned one thing during this terrible trip, she had learned that she knew next to nothing about the human heart, not even her own. Perspiring slightly from the effort, she tried to assume a nonjudgmental tone. "Does he"

"He does, but he don't know it. Or won't admit it."

"How do you know these things?" Augusta demanded irritably.

Cora chuckled. "I've always had a sense about men and women."

Instantly, Augusta blushed, recalling that Cora had guessed how she felt about Webb Coate even before she dared admit it to herself.

"I've been stupid and foolish," she heard herself confess. "I had a lot of time to think while I was recovering from Eaggleston's beating." She drew a long long breath, then said what previously would have been unthinkable. "You were right. I love Webb Coate." She heard Cora's gasp of surprise, but the skies didn't fall, and the earth did not disintegrate at the admission that a Boyd loved a half-breed. "I think he loves me too, I've been waiting for an opportunity to tell him if he still wants me well, somehow we'll work everything out. It doesn't matter that he's penniless. I don't care. I just need to be with him."

"Oh, Lord," Cora muttered in a low voice. She released a long sigh. "Didn't anyone tell you? It's the worst-kept secret ever. I thought sure someone must have told you."

"Told me what?"

"About Webb and Mem Grant."

"Webb? And Mem?" Her face went white as Cora told her that Webb and Mem considered themselves married. She sat as still as a stone while Cora told the whole story in an expressionless voice. Then she stood on trembling legs. Without a word, tears streaming down her cheeks, she walked to her tent and crawled inside.

Webb was an English peer. He was wealthy. He'd been educated in Europe. He owned homes in Devonshire, in London, and in Rome. She had been wrong about everything. She had focused on the wrong things and had refused to see the man. But Mem had seen with clear eyes. Mem had taken everything that Augusta might have had.

She stared at the roof of her tent, tears of pain and regret trickling into her hair. She could have been a countess; instead she would marry a stranger with a peasant's name. She had spurned a fabulous life she had been born to live because a Boyd could not lower herself to love a savage. What a blind buffoon she had been. She had doubted he would recognize a tablecloth, this man who had dined with the nobility of Europe.

And now that she could admit her love for him, now that she didn't give a damn what anyone might think, it was too late. He despised her and loved Mem. Tears ran down her cheeks.

"Good-bye, my love, my savage Lord Albany. I will never forget you." His bronzed face and black eyes were permanently imprinted on her mind and heart, her first, her only love. She remembered him caressing her and kissing her in the moonlight, remembered sensations and yearnings she would never feel again.

"Oh, my dearest, I will long for you every time my husband touches me."

Sobbing, she buried her face in her pillow.