“I don’t like this, Captain.” She started to rise, but he wouldn’t allow it.
“I certainly don’t mean to offend you. I’m sure that a woman as pretty as you has had more than a few offers, but I don’t think men interest you much.”
“Men who are forced on me certainly hold no interest for me. I think I need to go back to camp now.”
He caught her arm. “There’s more, and if I must remind you, you were the one who said I know nothing about you. Now, where was I? Oh, yes, someone is blackmailing you. I haven’t figured out why yet, but I feel sure it isn’t some former lover. No, it’s something more serious—much, much more serious. You don’t frighten easily yet you’re deathly afraid of whatever is going on in your life now.”
Maddie didn’t say anything; she couldn’t.
Very softly, very gently, he took her hand in his. “I am an honorable man…Maddie,” he whispered, using the name he’d heard Edith call her. “If you would confide in me, I will do all in my power to help you, but you have to trust me.”
It took every bit of Maddie’s willpower not to tell him about Laurel. She wanted to tell someone who might understand. Someone who might react differently from Edith who had merely shrugged her shoulders. And she wanted advice too. What would she do if she got to the third camp and they didn’t let her see Laurel? What if—
To keep herself from giving in to temptation, she jumped up, standing over him. “Oh, very good, Captain Montgomery, very, very good. If you ever leave the army, perhaps you can go on the stage.” She straightened her shoulders and looked down her nose at him. “But you forgot the most important thing about me: my voice. Until you have heard me sing, you know nothing about me. All else is superficial.”
He smiled up at her. “Do you really think that bunch of drunken, greedy men are going to appreciate opera?”
“One doesn’t have to appreciate opera, or even music, for that matter, to love the sound of my voice.”
He laughed at that, genuinely laughed, a deep, sweet sound. “Vain, aren’t you?”
Her face was serious. “Absolutely not. I haven’t a vain bone in my body. My voice is a gift from God. Were I to say that it is less than it is would be a slight to God.”
“That’s one way of looking at it.”
She sat down beside him. “No,” she said earnestly. “I’m speaking the truth. Where else does talent come from but God? I have been singing since I was three. I was on the stage at sixteen. Every day I thank God for blessing me with the voice He gave me and I try to honor Him by taking care of it.”
He knew she deeply, sincerely believed what she was saying and, with the way she spoke, it made sense. “And you think these miners are going to love your songs? Love your La…”
“Traviata.”
“Ah, yes, the fallen woman.”
She gave him a look of speculation. “You speak Italian?”
“A little. You think these miners will love your songs?”
“Not the songs. My voice. There is a great deal of difference.”
“All right,” he said, smiling, “then show me. Sing a song for me.”
At that she stood and smiled down at him. “I apologize, Captain Montgomery, for doubting you. You do have a sense of humor. An incredible, outrageous sense of humor.”
“Oh, I see, you need, what? An orchestra? Opera singers can’t sing a cappella?”
“I could sing underwater if need be, but I sing only when I want to. Were I to sing here for you, just you, it would be a gift of great value. You have done nothing to earn such a gift.”
“The miners who fork over ten dollars tonight have earned this…gift?”
“Tonight I will not sing for one man alone but for many. There is a great, great deal of difference.”
“Oh, I see,” he said in a patronizing way, then pulled his big gold watch out of his jacket pocket. “Gift or not, it’s time for you to get back to camp now to get ready to sing tonight.”
“How do you think I functioned for twenty-five years without you to tell me what to do and when to do it?”
“I really don’t know. It bewilders me.” As he stood, he grimaced with pain.
“Getting old, Captain?”