Scarlet Devices Read online

  Moreau, Whitcombe and Cantlebury formed the next wave, along with Miss Lavinia Speck, another British competitor. One of those four was ever within sight when Matthew looked back. Lazaris, the lone Greek competitor, and two of the other Dominion drivers made occasional appearances throughout the day.

  But ahead, except when Van der Grouten pulled forward, the view was always the same. Amaranth red, gleaming in the sun. Matthew was tempted to give Dexter Hardison’s engineering all the credit, and it was true Eliza’s steamer was one of the best-built vehicles he’d ever had the pleasure to see. But it took skill, nerve and stamina to drive as hard as Eliza did to keep the lead, not to mention determination.

  The weather was clear, the roads were still solid and Matthew arrived in Meridian, in the heart of the Northern Dominion, shortly before dusk. He found the city much like Pittsburgh—a somewhat larger version of Harrisburg, but all of them hamlets compared to New York City. A bit of a letdown.

  Decent food at the hotel, though, he had to admit. And the press had been stopped outside the lobby for the drivers’ privacy.

  “The wine is more than acceptable too,” Eliza pointed out to Matthew at dinner that evening. Then she looked to her right again, where one of the back-of-the-pack Dominion drivers was busy monopolizing her attention. Beau Parnell, a self-professed cowboy from the wilds of Victoria, did not let his lackluster driving impede his love for racing or his impression of himself as a master of the steam car. He clearly also fancied himself a playboy.

  “But see, when you slide that coupling bracket onto that hose,” he smarmed at Eliza, “that lard keeps the whole operation smooth and easy. Everything lasts longer too. You don’t want that rubber to get all dry and neglected-like.”

  Matthew nearly snapped the stem off his wineglass watching the gestures with which Parnell illustrated his words. Did Eliza have any idea how inappropriate the man was being? She couldn’t. Could she? Surely not.

  Eliza sipped her wine and hummed with appreciation before responding. “Why, Mr. Parnell, what a . . . passion you seem to have for mechanical equipment.” Then she turned her attention across the table to respond to a question from Lazaris, leaving Parnell to guess whether she’d understood him or not.

  For Matthew, the question was not whether she’d understood Parnell, but whether she knew how precarious her position was. Too precarious to play the flirt or to lob double entendres back and forth with strangers who wanted to best her in the rally. Two stops ago, the good townswomen had somehow been primed to shun her. She was an innocent, still in need of guidance. In need of protection from men like Parnell, who might get the wrong impression entirely. Matthew frowned into his steak au poivre and pondered his best course of action. What would Dexter advise, were he here? Matthew could only guess, and hope his instincts were correct.

  To the shock of the staff, the women stayed in the private dining room for port. Jeanette Barsteau, the French driver whose sleek forest green roadster still sported an old-fashioned tug-along for coal, even indulged in a cigar. When Parnell and his crony Johnston expressed their surprise—and obvious disapproval—she dismissed them with a toss of her fading ginger curls.

  “I survived the war. I pioneered the Paris-Rouen rally. I have been driving since before some of you were born. I have earned the right to enjoy a cigar as well as any of you. Better than most,” she added, with a pointed look at a few of the younger gentlemen. A smoke ring competition ensued, and the formidable lady seemed in line to win that too, with Eliza and several others cheering her on.

  When Whitcombe and Cantlebury launched into a round of off-color jokes, however, Matthew decided enough was enough.

  “Eliza, I think it’s time you retired.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t catch that? Oh, bravissima, Madame Barsteau!”

  “Eliza. This isn’t appropriate.” He clasped her wrist, holding on firmly when she tried to shake him off. “It’s time to take your leave.”

  The look she leveled at him could have boiled a frozen Alpine lake in midwinter. “I’m sure I can’t have heard you correctly, Mr. Pence.”

  He glared right back, lowering his voice to a harsh whisper. “Parnell is looking down your dress. So is Madame Barsteau, by the way. And Cantlebury’s next anecdote, if his repertoire hasn’t changed since Oxford, involves nuns and a pony. No young woman should be in the room when he tells that one. Please come with me now.”

  “A pony? Really?” She made little attempt to lower her voice, and Cantlebury heard her clearly.

  “Oh, I could tell you a tale about a pony,” he volunteered to the general approbation of the group. “And some nuns!”

  A cheer went up, and Matthew used the noise as cover for another fiercely whispered admonition. “Your cousin would skin me alive if he found out you’d been a party to this sort of thing and I did nothing to stop it.”

  Her expression turned sweet. Poisonously so. “Matthew, if you’re not having any fun, I suggest you go elsewhere and find some. But you should know better than to try to spoil it for other people. I am staying.” Distracting him with a condescending pat to his cheek, she twisted her other wrist sharply against his thumb to break his hold, then turned one slim shoulder to him, giving all her attention to the end of the table where Whitcombe was taking up Madame Barsteau’s challenge to another round of smoke rings, and Cantlebury was launching into the pony story with his usual gusto.

  Worn out from the drive and his day’s worth of worry over Barnabas, Matthew growled in frustration and rose abruptly from the table just as the waiter was passing by to pour another round of port. Physics and coincidence mated with spectacular results, and Eliza shrieked as half a bottle of port burbled down her cleavage.

  “What in the—good lord, that’s cold!” She stood, worsening matters. The port that had pooled in her lap began to soak all the way down her skirt, dripping to the floor.

  “Begging your pardon! Begging your pardon, miss! I’ll get—I’ll fetch a—I’ll—” The poor young waiter fled the room before finishing his utterance, leaving Matthew and the others to fling napkins Eliza’s way to try to soak up the worst of it.

  “Well, now I’ve completely lost my train of thought,” quipped Cantlebury, who didn’t seem terribly upset. He leaned forward, in fact, seeming to enjoy the unexpected entertainment.

  “It was a lovely ensemble,” Madame Barsteau lamented. “Qu’elle dommage.”

  “Perhaps it can be salvaged,” Matthew offered dubiously. None of them had changed from their driving clothes before dining—it was the wild frontier, after all—and Eliza was still in a midnight blue skirt that could probably be cleaned. But she’d removed her smart bolero jacket to attend the meal, and the deep red wine had clearly ruined the delicate silk blouse she’d worn beneath.

  Delicate, and now rather transparent. Her chemise and the lines of her corset were visible through the sodden fabric.

  If Dexter would flay him for letting her hear the pony story, Matthew couldn’t begin to imagine what the man would do for letting Eliza display her undergarments in public. “Let me help you to your room, Miss Hardison.”

  “Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” She snapped over a sudden lull in the babble around the small room. Anyone whose attention hadn’t already been riveted on the spectacle of the spilled port was now fully engaged in minding Miss Hardison’s business. “That may have been an accident, but it was certainly a convenient one for you.”

  Matthew pulled his jacket off, mourning the potential loss of the fine linen even as he slung it around Eliza’s shoulders. Settling it into place, he realized she was trembling. With rage, embarrassment or something else, he couldn’t tell. It didn’t matter.

  “Please have a bath and a maid sent to Miss Hardison’s room immediately,” he instructed the flustered waiter, who had just dashed back into the dining room with the maître d’ close behind. Matthew offered Eliza his a
rm and sighed with relief when she took it. They left to a chorus of apologies and “right away, sir” and so forth from the staff.

  He’d stopped the pony story in its filthy tracks and gotten Eliza out of the room, all in one fell accidental swoop. As far as Matthew was concerned, the unfortunate incident with the port was a godsend. Eliza obviously held a different perspective on matters.

  As soon as they’d entered the relative privacy of the elevator, Eliza flung Matthew’s jacket off and slapped it into his chest. Her silent glare spoke volumes. The elderly lift attendant never so much as looked their way.

  “Were you aware,” Matthew said as calmly as he could manage, while trying not to look at the area in question, “that your shirt and chemise have been rendered somewhat transparent?”

  She dropped her head to look, then gasped and snatched the jacket back, clutching it to her bosom. Her lips tightened, and he was treated to another few seconds of silence.

  “Thank you,” she finally blurted, as though it pained her. She shrugged the jacket back over her shoulders.

  “You’re most welcome.” Matthew was in a different kind of pain, himself. He hadn’t been able to avoid looking entirely. He was only human after all, only a mortal man, scarcely able to control himself in the presence of the divine—which Eliza’s figure was, even when not outlined in filmy port-soaked cloth. He’d caught a glimpse, just a fraction of a second of a peek, and seen that the cold had hardened her nipples. Now he felt light-headed and stupid with longing to look again.

  Instead, he stared hard at the ancient lift attendant’s bony shoulder blades under their dark red livery and tried not to let the color remind him of port.

  • • •

  EIZ COULDN’T QUITE find the word to describe how she felt. Mortified, though apt enough, seemed somehow inadequate. Frustrated, certainly. Aggravated and chagrined. Highly displeased at the loss of her shirt and the permanent staining of what had been a favorite chemise and a nearly new set of stays.

  She was also angry with Matthew, for being so condescending . . . and with herself, for her churlish behavior in the face of what had turned out to be his chivalry.

  The elevator clattered to a halt at Eliza’s floor, opening to an empty corridor with bland, tasteful wallpaper and thick carpeting. It was nice, but hardly what she was used to. And it might be their last night in anything like decent conditions before they reached Colorado Springs. Meridian City was relatively civilized, but certainly not New York. They would camp the next night, after they passed St. Louis and crossed into the vast Victoria Dominion. Assuming they made it farther, who knew what ramshackle amenities the frontier towns of Westport and Dodge City might offer? And between those two points was a two day span of driving, on wagon tracks if they were lucky, straight across the barely charted middle of Victoria.

  It suddenly seemed so far, so alien and daunting. All that distance, at breakneck speed, possibly risking her life and for what? To prove a point to herself, or to a man she didn’t even like?

  Fingering Matthew’s jacket as they neared her door, Eliza realized that was no longer true. Not really. Her opinion of him . . . was in flux and had been for some time. She wasn’t sure what she thought of him at the moment, but she liked the way his warmth conveyed itself via the jacket’s lining. She found it rich that Matthew had bristled at Parnell looking down her dress when she’d caught him doing essentially the same thing several times himself. But if she was being honest with herself, she rather liked that too. It gave her an odd thrill to be observed that way, to know that at least in one respect he apparently no longer saw her as a child.

  In other respects, unfortunately—

  “Don’t soak in that bath for too long. Remember we have an early start in the morning, and you need a good night’s sleep.”

  She fingered her key, resisting the urge to poke him with it. “Thank you for the advice. I’ll take it under the same consideration I take all your advice.”

  “Eliza . . . I’m sorry about your clothes being ruined and for any embarrassment you suffered, but I’m not sorry you had to leave before Cantlebury finished his story.”

  “The story’s that bad, really?” She fitted the key in the lock, then put her back to the door and faced him. “What was the danger? That I would expire from girlish chagrin on the spot? Perhaps the shock of such lurid words would have caused my maiden ears to implode. Might not be so bad, of course. I could get those clever implants Charlotte has, become impervious to motion sickness and end up with better hearing than anyone. There is always a silver lining. And I would owe it all to Cantlebury and his wicked tale of the nuns and the donkey.”

  “Pony. It’s always a pony.”

  Shrugging her shoulders reminded her that she still had his jacket, but when she moved to take it off and return it Matthew pressed his fingertips to her shoulders to prevent her removing the garment the rest of the way. As a result it hung open, hiding nothing, framing the deep red stain. With his hands there, she couldn’t pull it closed again either.

  “Keep it. It’s as doomed as your blouse and—and other things, anyway.”

  His words hardly registered. When he touched her, intervening fabric notwithstanding, all her attention had flown to those points of contact, and she’d lost her train of thought completely. Looking up to see if Matthew had noticed, she realized he was standing far too close for propriety. There in the corridor, where anyone might see.

  She didn’t care.

  Matthew didn’t meet her gaze. His stare was locked just below the level of his hands, as though the beam of his notice been caught in a snare there. Lips slightly parted, eyes dark and shadowed behind half-lowered lids. Eliza knew she was breathing too fast, that her heart was thumping at an alarming pace beneath her ruined shirt. Matthew seemed to have stopped breathing entirely.

  She saw—felt—his every motion as though time had expanded, slowed down to let her capture each impression fully. His fingertips flexed once against her shoulders, then his palms flattened slowly against her, his thumbs grazing into the hollows over her clavicles. When he pressed gently, securing her against the door, Eliza’s eyes fluttered shut and she forgot everything else in the world but his touch and the eager response of her nerve endings.

  Even though she knew what came next, the brush of his lips over hers was startling. She gasped into his mouth, light-headed with want for things she couldn’t articulate. Things she hadn’t expected to want from Matthew Pence, but her body obviously felt otherwise. She wasn’t inclined to argue with it at the moment.

  His breath was hot, and tinted with port wine. When he pulled away, her mouth felt cold.

  Opening her eyes, she watched as Matthew lifted his hands away, his expression as wide and astonished as a rabbit faced with the headlight of an oncoming steam carriage. For a moment he stood frozen, hands raised like a robbery victim, then he reached down beside her and turned the knob, opening the door before returning the key to her. He offered it dangling by two fingers, as though he were frightened to touch it, and dropped it into her palm when she reached to take it from him.

  After a long moment they both drew breath at the same time, as if about to speak over one another. Eliza had not a coherent word in her head though, not one she could pin down long enough to utter. Matthew must have felt the same, because he remained as silent as she.

  Finally, he nodded his head and strode away down the hall, never having said a word.

  Eliza backed into her room and leaned against the door, closing herself in and pressing her cheek against the cool wood.

  The first day of the rally was done, and what a long, strange day it had been.

  EIGHT

  IN THE MORNING, the dauntless ladies of the gold poppy lapel pins were assembled in force outside the Meridian Grand Hotel. Jostling for space with the press and the rest of the spectators, they wielded their elbows and bold placards with eq
ual vigor.

  “But who are they?” Eliza asked, sneaking peeks at the mob from the relative safety of the hotel dining room. She had pulled her chair out of place and was currently hidden from street view by one of the heavy red velvet curtains.

  She was asking her table mates, the three other female drivers, but it was the waiter who answered as he poured Madame Barsteau a fresh cup of poisonously strong coffee.

  “The ones with the signs and the flower pins, miss? They’re the El Dorado Foundation Ladies’ Society for Temperance and Moral Fortitude.” The long name tripped off his tongue with the ease of long familiarity, but his expression suggested his acquaintance with the organization was not a pleasant one.

  “I see.”

  “Do they really call themselves that?” asked Lavinia Speck, the one British woman in the race. She was a sweet-faced lady of thirty or so, but her shy smile concealed a sharp wit Eliza had already come to appreciate. Along with Madame Barsteau and Cecily Davis, the other Dominion woman, she had undertaken to debrief the newest member of their ranks on how best to handle the so-called “gentlemen” she would encounter if she pursued a racing career.

  “They do, miss,” the waiter confirmed. “And they mean every word of it.”

  “How unwieldy. There isn’t even an acronym.”

  “The temperance part I understand,” Eliza noted with a frown, “but what does the moral fortitude part refer to, exactly?”

  Glancing about to make sure the maître d’ didn’t catch him lingering, the young man leaned closer, the gleam of gossip brightening his eyes. “It’s about opium dens, miss. And human trafficking of a sort I can’t discuss with ladies.”

  “I’m no lady,” Madame Barsteau asserted. “You can tell me.”

  “If you insist, ma’am. The Foundation exists to fight the growing and nefarious presence of the illegal opium trade that’s apparently sweeping east from the California coast. Dens of vice and iniquity, mysterious oriental rituals . . .” His eyes flicked to Eliza’s face, and he bit his lip. “Begging your pardon, miss.”