Twin of Ice (14 page)

“I’ve grown up since then.”

“How could you? You’ve lived with an old man that spoiled you, just like your father did. No one’s ever spoiled Houston.”

Pam pulled away from him. “And is she good in bed? Is she also better at that than I am?”

“I have no idea. There’s a little fire in her but she’s clumsy with it. I’m not marryin’ her for sex. That’s always available.”

Pam put her arms around his neck. “If I begged you—,” she began.

“It wouldn’t help. I’m gonna marry Houston.”

“Kiss me,” she whispered. “Remind me. Let me remember.”

Speculatively, Kane looked at her. Perhaps he wanted to know, too. He put his big hand to the back of her head and his lips on hers. It was a long kiss and he put all he had into it.

And when he moved away, they were smiling at each other.

“It
is
over, isn’t it?” Pam whispered.

“Yes.”

She stayed close to him. “All those years with Nelson, I believed I was in love with you but I was in love with a dream. Perhaps my father was right.”

He removed her arms from his neck. “Any more talk of your father and we may come to blows.”

“You aren’t still angry at him, are you?”

“This is my weddin’ day and I want happiness, so let’s not talk about Fenton. Tell me about my son.”

“Gladly,” Pam said and began talking.

It was an hour later when Pam left Kane alone in the garden to finish his cigar. When he was done, he flung the butt to the ground, looked at his pocket watch and knew it was time to return to dress for the wedding.

He hadn’t taken but a few steps when he came face to face with a man who, if Kane had been able to see them together, he would have known was the image of himself in about ten years’ time.

Kane and Rafe Taggert stared at each other silently, rather like dogs meeting for the first time. Immediately, they each knew who the other was.

“You don’t look much like your father,” Rafe said with a hint of accusation in his voice.

“I wouldn’t know. I never met the man—or any of his kin,” Kane answered, pointing out the fact that no Taggert had ever contacted him in all the years he was growing up in Fenton’s stable.

Rafe stiffened. “I hear there’s blood on your money.”

“I hear you don’t have any—bloody or not.”

They glared across the space separating them. “You ain’t much like Frank, either. I’ll be leavin’ now.” He turned away.

“You can insult me but not the lady I’m marryin’. You’ll stay for the ceremony.”

Rafe didn’t look back, but he gave a curt nod before walking away.

“I want to talk to you,” Edan said from the doorway, his eyes grim.

The many women around Houston began to protest, but she put up her hand and silently followed Edan. He led her into his bedroom.

“I know this isn’t proper, but it’s the only place in the house that’s not crawling with people.”

Houston tried to not let her emotions show because she had the distinct impression Edan was angry with her.

“I know today’s your wedding, but I’ve got something to say. Kane knows all too well that the personal safety of the people connected to a man as wealthy as he is is often in jeopardy.” He looked at her. “What I’m saying is that Kane’s had me follow you a couple of times in the last week.”

Houston could feel color leaving her face.

“I don’t like what I’ve seen,” he continued. “I didn’t like that a young woman, unprotected, was going into a coal camp, but this Sisterhood of yours—.”

“Sisterhood!” Houston gasped. “How…?”

Edan grabbed a chair and put it behind her.

Feebly, Houston sat down.

“I didn’t want to do it, but Kane insisted that I…ah, hide in a closet and be there during your tea party in case you needed protection.”

Houston was looking at her hands and didn’t see Edan’s slight smile at the words “tea party.” “How much does he know?” she whispered.

Edan took a seat across from her. “I was afraid of that,” he said heavily. “How could I tell him that you’re marrying him because of his connection to Fenton? You’re using him and his money to further your crusade against the evil of coal. Damn! but I should have known better. With a sister like yours who’d steal her own sister’s—.”

Houston stood. “Mr. Nylund!” she said through clenched teeth. “I will
not
listen to you impugn my sister, and I have no idea what you’re talking about when you say Kane is connected to the Fentons. If you believe my purposes are evil, we’ll go now and tell Kane everything.”

“Wait a minute,” he said, standing, grabbing her arm. “Why don’t you explain—?”

“Don’t you mean that I should try to convince you that I’m innocent, that I’m not leading Kane Taggert down the aisle only to be slaughtered? No, sir, I do not answer such accusations. Tell me, did you plan to use your knowledge of me as blackmail?”

“Touché.” he said, visibly relaxing. “Now that we’ve both shown our anger, could we talk? You’ll have to admit that your actions aren’t exactly beyond suspicion.”

Houston also tried to relax, but it was difficult. She didn’t like to think of how he’d come to know of The Sisterhood.

“How long have you been doing your Wednesday masquerades?” Edan asked.

Houston walked to the window. On the lawn below were workers looking as if they were preparing for the siege of an army. She looked back at Edan. “What we women do, we’ve done for generations. The Sisterhood was founded by my father’s mother before there even was a Chandler, Colorado. We are merely friends who try to help each other and anyone else we can. Right now, our major concern is the treatment of the people in the coal camps. We do nothing illegal.” Her eyes fastened on his. “Nor do we use anyone.”

“Why the secrecy then?”

She looked at him in disbelief. “Look at your own reaction to your knowledge, and you aren’t even a relative. Can you imagine how the husbands and fathers would react if they found out their delicate women spent their free afternoons learning to drive a four-horse wagon? And some of us have…” She stopped talking.

“I see your point. But I see theirs, too. What you’re doing is dangerous. You could be—.” He stopped. “You say you’ve been doing this for three generations?”

“We take on different problems at different times.”

“And the…ah, tea parties?”

In spite of herself, Houston blushed. “It was my grandmother’s idea. She said she went to her own wedding night knowing nothing and terrified. She didn’t want her friends or her daughters to have the same experience. I think perhaps the pre-wedding celebration has evolved slowly into what you”—she swallowed—“saw.”

“How many women in Chandler belong to The Sisterhood?”

“There’re only a dozen active members. Some, like my mother, retire after they’re married.”

“Do you plan to retire?”

“No,” she answered, looking up at him, because, of course, her participation could depend on him.

He turned away from her. “Kane won’t like your driving the wagon into the coal fields. He won’t like your being in jeopardy.”

Houston moved to face him. “I know he wouldn’t like it, which is truly the
only
reason I haven’t told him. Edan,”—she put her hand on his arm—“this means so much to so many people. It took me months of work to learn how to act like an old woman, to be able to really become Sadie. If I stopped now, it would take more months to train someone else and, in the meantime, so many miners’ families would go without the little extras I give them.”

He took her hand. “All right, you can get off your pulpit. I guess it’s safe enough, even though it goes against everything I believe.”

“You won’t tell Kane? I’m quite sure he won’t be understanding in the least.”

“I’m sure that’s an understatement. No, I won’t tell him if you swear to only deliver potatoes and
not
get involved with the unions. And about this seditious magazine you women want to start—.”

She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek to cut him off. “Thank you so much, Edan. You are a true friend. Now I must go dress for my wedding.” Before he could speak, she was at the door, but paused, her hand on the knob. “What did you mean about Kane’s connection to the Fentons?”

“I thought you knew. Jacob Fenton’s younger sister, Charity, was Kane’s mother.”

“No,” she said softly. “I didn’t know.” She left the room.

Houston was in her bedroom only minutes when Sarah Oakley said, as she held out Houston’s wedding dress, “I just saw the oddest thing.”

“What was that?”

“I thought it was Kane in the garden wearing his old clothes, but instead it was a boy who looks like him.”

“Ian,” Houston said with a smile. “He
did
come.”

“If there’s anything left of him,” Nina said, looking over the rail. “Two of the Randolph boys and Meredith’s two brothers started laughing at him and your Ian attacked them.”

Houston’s head came up. “Four against one?”

“At least that many. Now they’ve gone behind a tree and I can’t see them.”

Houston took her hands off the wedding dress Sarah was still holding and went to the window. “Where are they now?”

“There,” Nina pointed. “See the commotion in the shrubs? That’s one heck of a fight going on.”

Leaning far out the window, Houston surveyed the garden area. Most of the scene was hidden from the house by trees.

“I’ll send someone to stop the fight,” Sarah was saying.

“And humiliate a Taggert?” Houston said, going to the closet. “Not on your life.” She again pulled on her dark blue satin dressing gown.

“What in the world are you planning, Houston?” Sarah gasped.

“I am going to stop a fight and save a Taggert from a fate worse than death: humiliation. There’s no one in the back.”

“Just a few dozen waiters and guests and…” Nina said.

“Houston, dear, aren’t there some fireworks downstairs? If someone were to light them it would create a diversion,” Opal said softly. She knew from experience that it was useless to tell her daughter that she needed to get dressed. Not when one of her girls wore that expression.

“I’m on my way,” Nina called, running out the door as Houston put her foot out the window and onto the rose trellis.

The east lawn was alive with the explosive noise of fireworks, with early guests all looking that way, as Houston made her way diagonally across the stretch of west lawn and into the trees.

Deep in the shade of a grove of black walnut trees, Ian Taggert uselessly fought the four stout boys on top of him.

“Stop that!” Houston said in her sternest voice.

Not one boy paid her the least attention.

She moved into the flailing arms and legs, grabbed an ear and pulled. Jeff Randolph came up swinging but stopped when he saw Houston. She motioned him to stand back while she went after George and Alex Lechner, pulling up both boys by their ears.

Only Steve Randolph remained on top of Ian and when Houston touched Steve’s ear, he came up flying, an uncomprehending mass of rage. The three boys standing in the background gasped when Steve sent a fist sailing toward Houston’s jaw. She ducked and, seeing no other way, decked young Steven with a right. Months of handling a four-horse wagon had given her quite a bit of strength in her arms.

For a moment, no one could move as Steve slowly fell across Ian’s legs.

Houston recovered first. “Steve!” she said, kneeling, slapping the boy’s face. “Are you all right?”

“Damn!” Ian breathed. “I ain’t never seen no lady punch like that.”

Steve groaned, sat up, rubbed his jaw and looked at Houston in wonder. In fact, all five of the boys were gaping at her.

She stood. “I don’t appreciate such behavior on my wedding day,” she said regally.

“No, ma’am,” four of the boys mumbled.

“We didn’t mean nothin’, Miss Blair-Houston. He—.”

“I want no excuses. Now, you four go back to your parents and, Steven, put some ice on your jaw.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he called over his shoulder, all of them getting away as quickly as possible.

She held her hand out to Ian to help him up. “You may come with me.”

He ignored her hand. “I ain’t goin’ into
his
house if that’s what you mean,” he said angrily.

“Perhaps you’re right. For this fracas, I’m using a rose trellis as a staircase. Any boy who’d lose a fight probably couldn’t climb a trellis.”

“Lose a fight!” He was as tall as she was and, at sixteen, already big, showing promise of reaching Kane’s size. He almost put his nose to hers. “In case you cain’t count, there was four of ’em on me and I woulda, won if you hadn’t come along and interrupted.”

“But you’re afraid to enter your own cousin’s house,” she said, as if it were an observation. “How odd. Good day to you.” She started briskly toward the house.

Ian began walking beside her. “I ain’t afraid. I just don’t wanta go inside.”

“Of course.”

“What’s that mean?”

She stopped. “I agree with you. You aren’t afraid of your cousin, you just don’t want to see him or to eat his food. I understand perfectly.”

She watched emotions play across his face.

“Where’s this damned rose trellis of yours?”

She stood rooted to where she was and looked at him.

He stopped glaring. “All right then, where’s the rose trellis you’re usin’ as a staircase?”

“This way.”

Kane was just returning to the house when he was halted by the extraordinary sight of his wife-to-be, wearing only a garment he knew no lady wore outside her own house, climbing down the rose trellis.

More than a little curious, he stepped behind a tree to watch her and saw her fling herself into the midst of a pile of wrestling boys who were as big as she was. He was halfway there to help her when he saw her flatten a boy with a championship right.

The next minute, she was arguing in her own cool way with a big, sullen-looking boy. “Might as well give up,” Kane said aloud, laughter in his voice. He’d already learned that when Houston looked like that, a man might as well give in because that delicate little lady was going to get her own way.

He laughed again when he saw the boy start up the rose trellis ahead of Houston. But as Kane watched, he saw Houston’s gown snag and saw her struggle to free herself. Around the corner three men and a woman were walking and, in another minute, they’d see her.