Page 34 of For the Roses (Claybornes' Brides (Rose Hill) 1)

  “Were we as subtle as you were when you were trying to find out about us?”

  “Yes,” Harrison admitted. “I guess I was as transparent as you were.”

  “We all have marks on our pasts,” Cole said. “Fact is, you could have come here to get the goods on any one of us. We aren’t sorry about anything. We did what we had to do in order to survive. We don’t expect you to understand. We are what we are.”

  “We make no excuses to anyone,” Adam said quietly.

  “And no one ever helped you, isn’t that right?” Harrison asked.

  “Damn right no one helped us. We didn’t ask for anything, and we wouldn’t have accepted it.”

  Harrison nodded. He understood now. He should have realized that important fact a long time ago.

  “I want to tell you a story. I would appreciate it if you all would be patient and hear what I have to say.”

  He waited until everyone nodded agreement, then leaned back in his chair and began.

  “The man I now work for was a very close friend of my father’s. I might have mentioned the association to you before, I can’t recall. His name is Lord William Elliott. His wife’s name was Agatha. She was a good woman with a kind heart. Elliott couldn’t have done better. He loved her as passionately as she loved him. They had a very happy, solid marriage.”

  “What do they have to do with us?” Travis asked.

  “Let him explain,” Adam said.

  “Elliott was, and still is, a brilliant man. He quickly amassed a fortune. He built several factories in England and then decided to expand into America. He came to New York City with his wife for the opening of a factory outside the city. He never would have allowed Agatha to accompany him, however, if he had known she was carrying his child. His wife’s health was more important to him than any financial matter.

  “The grand opening was postponed because one of the buildings didn’t meet Elliott’s standards. He considered it a fire hazard and ordered changes. He and his wife stayed on in America while he personally watched over the workmen. Agatha gave birth to their only child several months later. They named their daughter, Victoria, after Elliott’s mother.”

  Harrison paused to gather his thoughts. He looked at the brothers to see if any of them had begun to guess where he was headed. He saw only mild curiosity, however.

  “They had been in New York City almost a full year when disaster struck. The factory was finally ready for the grand opening. Both Elliott and his wife attended the celebration. Agatha wanted to take the baby along, but Elliott wouldn’t allow it. He argued the baby wasn’t yet four months old and was therefore too fragile to be taken out in the cool spring air. They left little Victoria with her nursemaid and a full staff. They were away for just two short days, but when they returned to the city, they found the authorities waiting on their doorstep. The nursemaid had disappeared with the baby. The note demanding money arrived the following afternoon. Elliott’s personal secretary, George MacPherson, grabbed hold of the messenger before he could get away and dragged him inside for questioning. The boy couldn’t tell them anything significant. Elliott quickly got the money together and then waited for instructions to come telling him where to take it. No other notes followed however. Elliott clung to the hope his daughter would be returned safe and sound.”

  “What happened to her?” Travis asked.

  “She vanished.”

  Silence followed. Harrison realized he was holding a drink in his hand and couldn’t remember reaching for it. He put it down on the table.

  “Lady Agatha never recovered from the nightmare. She became quite ill, and after six months of frantic searching, Elliott was forced to take his wife back to England. He left MacPherson in New York City to coordinate the investigation. Every lead was followed, but the investigators Elliott hired and the authorities all came up with dead ends. Then, exactly six months later, the nursemaid was found.”

  “Was the baby with her?” Cole asked.

  “No. There wasn’t any evidence in the room she’d rented to give anyone a clue as to the whereabouts of Victoria. It was assumed the woman hid the baby outside the city, then returned for some specific reason. Only God knows what. She was dead by the time the authorities got to her. She’d been strangled.

  “Elliott and his wife didn’t give up the search. Agatha couldn’t regain her strength, however. She died a year or so later. The physicians said it was consumption, but Elliott understood the real reason. He told me she had stopped living the day her baby was taken. She died of a broken heart.”

  “Did she blame her husband because he made her leave the baby at home?” Travis asked.

  “No, I don’t believe she did. Elliott blamed himself, of course.”

  “How old were you when all of this happened?”

  “I was just a boy, around ten years old,” Harrison answered. “When my father died, Elliott moved me into his home. He took over for my own father, made certain I was well educated, and tried to go on with his life.

  “Everyone in England knew what had happened. Elliott was a powerful voice in Parliament. He retired when he came back home, sold off his factories, and never gave up his search. I remember that each time I came back from university, he would tell me about a possible sighting.”

  “Sighting?”

  “Someone who looked like Victoria might look today,” he explained.

  “Sounds like he was grasping at straws,” Cole remarked.

  “He was desperate,” Adam said.

  “Yes,” Harrison agreed. “He was desperate. He didn’t give up until a couple of years ago. Then I took over his hunt for him. Finding Victoria became my obsession.”

  “And now?” Adam asked.

  Harrison took a long breath. “I’ve found her.”

  August 23, 1866

  Dear Mama Rose,

  I played with Cole’s gun. I was just having fun, but he still yelled at me real good. He said he was going to spank my behind too. Then I cried real good and he changed his mind. Guns are bad, Mama. Adam said so. I won’t play with guns no more. Not ever. Will you tell Cole not to yell at me? I am a good girl. Adam said so.

  I love you,

  Your good girl Mary Rose

  12

  They didn’t want to believe him. Cole was emphatic in his denial. Mary Rose wasn’t Victoria. She couldn’t be. Adam was more reasonable. He asked questions trying to find an inconsistency. Travis tore apart every explanation Harrison gave. Douglas remained unusually silent. He kept his gaze on his glass and shook his head every once in a while. He appeared to be too stunned to speak.

  “Coincidence,” Cole said. He pounded his fist down on the tabletop to stress his point.

  “When was Victoria born?” Adam asked in a voice shaking with emotion.

  Harrison had already answered the question three times. He patiently gave the date once again. “January second, 1860.”

  “Holy Mother of God,” Adam whispered.

  “Lots of people were born on January second,” Travis argued.

  “Be reasonable,” Harrison requested.

  “Explain how you came to your conclusion that our Mary Rose was the woman you were searching for.”

  “Travis, I’ve already explained.”

  “I don’t give a damn, Harrison. Explain it again.”

  “Fine,” he agreed. “The woman who saw Mary Rose at the boarding school reported the incident to Elliott’s people. I happened to be in Chicago at the time on business. The woman lived a short train ride away, and so I went to her home to talk to her.”

  “How did you hear about the woman? Does Elliott have people working for him in America?” Travis asked.

  “Yes, but that isn’t how I found out. I received a wire from London. I had requested to be kept informed. Elliott had given up.”

  “But you hadn’t,” Travis remarked. He sounded angry about Harrison’s tenacity.

  “No, I hadn’t given up, and neither had his staff. They notified me.

I hired an attorney in St. Louis to interview Mary Rose.”

  “Lawyers stick together like fleas and leeches, don’t they?” Cole said.

  Harrison didn’t respond to the insult. “What the attorney found out made me more curious.”

  “She didn’t tell him anything,” Cole argued. “She wouldn’t have.”

  “You’re right. She didn’t tell him anything. It’s what the attorney couldn’t find out that intrigued me. The headmistress said Mary Rose’s mother lived in the South. I wondered why, of course, but I didn’t find it unusual enough to pursue. Sisters boast about their brothers, or complain about them. At least I thought they did, but Mary Rose wouldn’t say a word about the four of you. The attorney reported she’d been on her guard and seemed afraid and somewhat agitated.”

  “She distrusts lawyers as much as we do,” Travis told him.

  “Yes, I understand,” Harrison said. “Your reaction when you found out what I did for a living was another clue that one of you might be in trouble.”

  “We told Mary Rose not to talk about us. We didn’t want folks looking into matters that didn’t concern them.”

  “As I said before, I understand now. I didn’t understand at the time.”

  “What didn’t you understand?” Cole asked.

  “That all of you have broken the law in the past. Anyway, your sister’s reticence made me more curious.”

  “And then?” Travis asked.

  Harrison held on to his patience. He knew why they were making him go over his explanation again. They were hunting for flaws. He couldn’t blame them. In their place, he would have done the same thing.

  “There had been hundreds of reports over the years about women who resembled Victoria’s mother, or aunt, or cousin, or some other distant relative. Although the woman who had seen Mary Rose was emphatic about the resemblance, I still wouldn’t have come all the way to Montana just because of a similarity in appearance. No, I came here because of the report I’d read about the interview with your sister.”

  Harrison reached for his glass and took a drink. He really didn’t want the brandy, but his throat was dry.

  “There’s a portrait hanging in Elliott’s library,” he began.

  “What? You didn’t mention a portrait before,” Travis said.

  He guessed he hadn’t. “Right after Elliott married Agatha, he commissoned a well-known artist to paint his wife’s likeness. When Mary Rose came strolling down the aisle in Morrison’s store, for a moment I thought Agatha had stepped out of the oil portrait and was coming to greet me. Your sister’s resemblance to Agatha is astonishing. You know the rest of it. None of you made my task easy.”

  “I’m glad to know we did something right,” Cole interjected.

  “All of you gave me odd, nonsensical answers to my questions. Your resistance fed my curiosity. Only people with a secret would behave in such a manner. You told me again and again that it was dangerous for anyone to ask questions out here, yet you plied me with hundreds of them. There was also your distrust of anyone associated with the law. Believe it or not, lawyers serve a purpose, a damned good one at that. We aren’t your enemy, but you behaved as though you believed we were. It was more than apparent to me that you had something to hide. My mistake was thinking you were trying to keep me from finding out the truth about the kidnapping. I didn’t believe you planned the theft, but I did think you were protecting the man or woman who had taken her. Now that I’ve gotten to know all of you, I realize you got here on your own. You only had each other to depend on.”

  Harrison paused to gather his thoughts. The brothers patiently waited for him to continue.

  “You decided to pull together and become a family. Then you took the baby and headed west. Mary Rose is Lady Victoria, isn’t she?”

  Adam closed his eyes. He looked stricken. “Dear God, she must be.”

  Travis reached for the bottle. Harrison noticed his hand shook. His glass was already full, but the brother didn’t seem to notice.

  Cole was staring at Harrison. He looked desolate.

  Harrison turned his gaze to Adam. “On your brothers’ behalf, your sister’s behalf, and on your behalf, give me a dollar.”

  The request didn’t make any sense to any of them. Adam didn’t move. Harrison gave his demand again, in a harder tone of voice.

  The brother reached into his vest pocket, pulled out a silver coin, and tossed it to Harrison. He caught it in midair.

  “What was that for?” Travis asked.

  “It was a retainer. I don’t give a damn if you like lawyers or not, I now represent you. Does everyone understand and agree?”

  He made all of them give their verbal consent before he continued. Then he shifted positions, scanned his audience, and said, “Who’s going to start explaining?”

  “Do you think we stole her?” Cole asked.

  “We didn’t,” Travis said. “Someone else did. Whoever it was must have gotten cold feet.”

  “We found her,” Cole said.

  “Where?” Harrison asked.

  “In the trash,” Cole answered.

  “Where?” He hadn’t meant to raise his voice, but surprise made him overreact.

  “You heard me. We found her in the trash heap in our alley. The four of us had formed our own gang. God, we were young and stupid back then.”

  “You were children,” Harrison replied. “There is safety in numbers.”

  “Yes,” Cole agreed wearily. He turned to Adam. “You tell him what happened.”

  Adam nodded. “We had formed a gang of sorts. We all lived on the street. I had made it to New York City with the help of the Underground, but I wasn’t going to stay there. I’d promised my mother I’d head west. She thought I would be safer there, until things changed.”

  “What things?” Harrison asked.

  “Mother kept up with all the news. Lincoln was talking about ending slavery. The movement in the North was growing and she knew a fight was coming. If it went in our favor, we’d be freed. It was a hope, and I clung to it.

  “My brothers and I lived in the alley. We slept close together so we could keep warm. It was going on May, but the nights were still cold that year, and we didn’t have many blankets.”

  “In 1860?”

  “Yes, 1860,” Adam said. “There were other gangs of displaced children roaming the streets looking for food and trouble. The alley was our home, and we were determined to defend it. We each took turns standing watch at the entrance. It was Douglas’s turn that night. Travis and Cole and I were sound asleep. He whistled to us and pointed to the trash heap. Then he took off. He was curious about something and wanted to investigate.

  “I heard a noise,” Adam continued. “Douglas told me later he thought it was a cat inside. Travis, I remember, was worried it might be a snake.”

  “Inside what?” Harrison asked.

  “A basket,” Adam answered. “Anyway, I thought there was an animal inside too. I went over to get a better look. I saw the rats then.”

  “Dear God . . .”

  “They were all over the thing. I had to light my torch to chase them away. One had worked his way up to the top and was chewing through the lid. If I had waited another minute, the rat would have gotten to her.”

  Harrison pictured what would certainly have happened to Mary Rose and blanched in reaction.

  “I got to her in time, and that’s all that matters. We thought she was a boy. We named her Sidney.”

  “She knows everything, doesn’t she?” Harrison asked.

  “Oh, yes, she knows how we found her. We’ve never kept any secrets from her. She knows all about us too.”

  Harrison smiled. “Now I understand why she was so upset when Cole called her Sidney.”

  “Yes,” Cole said. “It’s a reminder to her that she isn’t any better than anyone else. She is though. She’s pure of heart and noble and . . .”

  Cole’s voice belied his stony expression.

  Adam cleared his throat

and continued on. “We made a pact late that night to do the best we could for her. We didn’t think she would make it if we took her to one of the city’s orphanages. Travis was the only one who knew for certain no one was searching for him. We all became Claybornes and headed west. It took us a long, long time to get here and build a home.”

  “But we did it.” Cole said. “Now that I think about it, I guess maybe Mary Rose’s father helped us.”

  “How?” Harrison asked.

  “Douglas took the money from the woman who threw the basket away. He was real good picking pockets. The money financed our way for a long time. Whoever took the baby must have stolen the money too.”

  “How old were all of you?”

  Travis answered him. “I was really just nine, going on ten, but I told everyone I was close to eleven. I was afraid they wouldn’t take me if I was too young. I wanted them to think I could hold my own in a fight. Douglas and I knew what it was like living in an orphanage. We weren’t going back. I guess I was smart enough to realize I needed protection. Adam was big and mean-looking to me, and so I chose to hound him day and night until he finally let me stay with him. He was thirteen. Douglas and Cole were eleven years old.”

  “You were children,” Harrison said. “Yet even so, didn’t it occur to you that the baby might have been stolen?”

  “Why would such a thought occur to us?” Cole asked. “We just figured her mother or father didn’t want her any longer.”

  “You believed they threw her away? How could you possibly believe such a thing?”

  Cole and Douglas looked at each other, then turned to Harrison again.

  “Why not?” Douglas asked. “We were.”

  Cole couldn’t understand Harrison’s incredulity. “How do you think the city got glutted with so many children? Do you really think they all just got lost? The authorities knew the truth. Every once in a while, they’d grab as many of them as they could, put them on trains, and send them away. None of them knew where the trains were headed.”

  Douglas let out a sigh. “No one wanted them,” he said. “And no one wanted the three of us. Adam was different. His mother had sent him away to keep him safe. She didn’t abandon him.”