“Get out of here and call my maid.”
“I’m good with corset ties.”
“Go!”
“All right, but when you’re ready for bed, I come back in here. Understand?” He didn’t give her time to answer before he left the tent.
Maddie sat down on the cot. She didn’t understand the man at all. One minute she was practically throwing herself at him and he was ignoring her, then the next he was offering to take her clothes off for her.
It was several moments before she realized that Edith was standing over her and whispering.
“I got it.”
“Got what?” Maddie asked.
“The fruit you asked for. I had to pay a lot for it though.”
Maddie still wasn’t thinking clearly and just looked at Edith.
“He make you forget your little sister again? If a man could make a woman forget, he could, but I can’t tell that he’s interested in women.”
“Because he’s not interested in you?”
“Jealous, are you? I haven’t seen you wakin’ up happy after a night with him. Or is tonight the first? You
sure put on a show for him this time.”
“Help me undress, and I did not put on a show for him. I merely sang and played a role as it was meant to be played. It was about—”
“You don’t have to explain any of it to me or to anybody else. A blind man could have seen what you was singin’ about. The way you was rubbin’ on that post and lookin’ at Captain Montgomery. Mmmm-hmmm! I’ll have to try that sometime.”
Maddie could feel her face turning red and was glad for the nightgown going on over her head.
“You want the fruit or not?”
It took Maddie a moment to remember what Edith was talking about. Early the next morning she was to leave the camp, alone, and make the long climb up the mountain to meet the man and exchange letters. And if she did everything he said and did it well, she would see Laurel.
“You still want the fruit, or you gonna just ask him to let you go?”
Yesterday Maddie had decided that the only way to get away from Captain Montgomery was to do something that would force him to let her go alone to meet the man who had Laurel. She knew there was no use trying to talk to him. He’d set himself up as her caretaker, and he wasn’t going to relinquish the job.
Sitting in that coach for hours yesterday, she’d come up with nothing more creative than to once again use opium. It would get him out of the way for a good long while, giving Maddie the time she needed to get ahead of him, and Edith seemed to have an unlimited supply of the stuff. Maddie had been able to form a plan that would probably trick him enough to get him to take the opium in some dried fruit.
“Yes,” she said softly. “I still need the fruit.” As she said it, she felt quite bad. It hadn’t bothered her before when she’d seen him drink the whiskey with the opium and now, if anything, he was more of a nuisance and a hindrance than he was before. But since then he’d rescued her from the men who’d taken her and wanted to hear her voice. He had dressed himself like an arsenal tonight, ready to use fists or guns or whatever was needed to ensure her safety. And he’d come to get her when the men had carried her off on their shoulders. And if she were honest with herself, she knew that the truth was that she’d been able to perform Carmen only because she knew that he was there watching over her. Had she been alone, with just Sam and Frank to take care of her, she would never have dared to act in such an audacious way. Of course, while she was being honest with herself, she had to admit that she might not have wanted to be Carmen and rub up against a post if Captain Montgomery hadn’t been there watching her.
“Bring the fruit in the morning. At about five. That should make him sleep most of the day. Did you get a horse?”
“Just like you said. It’ll be waitin’ for you.” Edith looked at Maddie awhile. “You really gonna go out there in them woods all alone?”
“The woods are safer than a town like this. The woods don’t frighten me a bit, but when Captain Montgomery wakes up, he’s going to be in a foul mood.”
“Is he! I think I might find I have to do somethin’ on the other side of town all day tomorrow. I don’t want him to find out I had anything to do with this.”
“Wise decision.”
When ’Ring returned, Maddie was hidden under the covers of her hard little cot, but she listened to him as he undressed and spread his blankets on the canvas-covered floor. She wondered what he was wearing, or, more precisely, what he wasn’t wearing.
He turned out the lantern and moved between his rough army wool blankets. “Good night,” he said softly.