Elusive Lovers

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  Copyright ©1994 by Nancy R. Herndon

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  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  First E-Reads Edition 2004

  The newly—and recently—wed, Jeff and Lisa,

  Donna and Ken, Matt and Sheila,

  Bill and Anne

  I would like to acknowledge the help of my writing friends, Elizabeth Facker, Terry Irvin, Jean Miculka, and especially Joan Coleman. Many thanks to those in Breckenridge who assisted in my research for this book and the previous novel, Reluctant Lovers, and to the librarians at the University of Texas at El Paso library. Also to my agent, Rob Cohen, and my editor, Alicia Condon.

  N.R.H.

  Book I

  The Dutiful Daughter

  Chapter One

  "Young Kristin, where ha’ you been?” demanded Lottie McCloud, the Traubes’ Scots housekeeper. “Yer parents an’ brothers ha’ left for the choral society banquet wi'out you."

  Kristin's heart gave a bounce of happiness. Now she would have the opportunity to sketch a nose she had seen at the railroad station, a feature whose gaping nostrils were, she felt sure, the physical manifestation of moral degeneracy. Kristin and Genevieve Boyer had rescued a young girl before the bounder with the nose could prevail in his evil intentions.

  "Your father was that angry,” said Lottie, tucking her hands into the sash of her apron. “An’ there's Mr. Cameron, as handsome as the Bonnie Prince himself, waitin’ in the library for yer sister, an’ her a half hour late already. You'd best get yerself in there an’ entertain the man before he leaves in a tizzy."

  Kristin felt a jolt of delicious terror at the prospect of spending time alone with the handsome and sophisticated Mr. Cameron, who had been the object of her secret daydreams for months. She was always amazed that Minna dared to treat him so cavalierly. Her sister's arrogance certainly didn't stem from any great beauty, for she had rather lank, dark hair, a sallow complexion, and eyes that were at least a quarter of an inch too close on either side of her nose. The color of the eyes, however, was interesting, Kristin decided, as interesting as the nose at the railroad station. Minna's eyes were ordinary brown, but in moments of extreme displeasure, an emotion to which she was prone, greenish-yellow flecks would appear and—

  "Dinna stand there dreamin', lass. Get yerself into the library."

  Kristin's mind emptied of all thoughts about the bounder's nose, Minna's close-set, spotty eyes, and the conclusion that Minna thought she could treat Mr. Cameron carelessly because she had a huge dowry. “I have a headache!” said Kristin impulsively, afraid that Mr. Cameron might notice her silly infatuation and laugh at her.

  "A nice cuppa tea will take care a that,” said Lottie, “an’ then if yer sister doesna get herself home, an’ the man willna leave, you can offer him a wee bite a dinner. He must be gettin’ hungry by now."

  "But Lottie,” protested Kristin.

  "Hush now, lass. You're the only one at home to do it, so ‘tis yer responsibility."

  Kristin considered the matter of responsibility, not much of which came her way. Her older sister shared some of the household duties with her mother, although not many, and her brothers all held positions in the family meat-packing business. Being the youngest child, Kristin was ignored when it came to adult concerns. Nonetheless, she didn't want to spend the evening with Mr. Cameron. He made her heart flutter disturbingly. “Do you know where Minna is or when she's expected?” asked Kristin. Would she dare send a messenger to summon her sister home?

  "She's gone off wi’ friends, knowin’ full well the man was comin’ to take her to dinner. I told him so, an’ he said—talkin’ like some fancy English lord, for all Cameron's a good Scots name—'I hardly think Miss Traube would be so rude as to forget an appointment with her fiance.’”

  Lottie mimicked him so broadly that Kristin felt defensive on his behalf.

  "Now in you go, lass."

  The housekeeper was edging Kristin toward the library door, where she patted Kristin's pale golden hair into place and straightened the lace collar on her soft wool dress. Kristin had only a second to give thanks that she was wearing a pretty gown. The color, Persian lilac, suited her coloring, and the close-fitting bodice denied the family's perception that she was still a little girl.

  "Make conversation wi’ the man, as the good sisters taught you,” Lottie whispered. “Offer him food an’ drink."

  Then Lottie took her firmly by the elbow, opened the door, and announced, “Here's Miss Kristin, sir, to entertain you until Miss Minna gets home."

  "Minna's probably out on some errand of mercy,” Kristin mumbled, hovering shyly in the doorway.

  "Oh?” said Mr. Cameron, who had risen politely, setting aside an album through which he had been paging.

  "Yes, I'm sure that's it.” Kristin hoped her face wasn't as pink as it felt. “Sitting with a bereaved family perhaps,” she added, thinking that her sister was as likely to be comforting the bereaved as Heinrich Traube, the sausage king of Chicago, was to declare that he preferred a good lamb chop to any meat that came from a pig.

  Mr. Cameron stared at Kristin and took a sip from the balloon glass in his left hand. Then he leaned his elbow on the mantel—a heavily carved marble affair that Kristin thought hideous. “More likely she's forgotten,” he said. The expression on his face boded ill for Minna.

  "Because of the wedding,” Kristin agreed quickly. “The excitement has addled her brains.” Actually nothing addled Minna's brains. Minna hewed to a rigorous schedule and planned everything meticulously.

  "The wedding,” said Mr. Cameron, “is not until a year from June, over fourteen months away. I hardly think she's addled yet. Shall we sit down?"

  Belatedly, Kristin realized that he couldn't sit until she did and, flushing, she crossed the room to perch in a leather chair on the other side of the hearth, wishing as soon as she was seated that she had chosen the sofa, which was twelve feet away. Then she would have escaped the warm tingling engendered by his proximity. “I do truly fear, Mr. Cameron, that she'll not be back until nine or ten,” admitted Kristin, the first honest thing she'd said to him. How she hated the social conventions that mandated so much polite lying and evasion.

  "You know for a fact that she's jilted me, do you?"

  "Oh, no,” she said quickly. “Just forgotten."

  "Well, it's not your fault that your sister is remiss in her responsibilities as an affianced woman."

  Kristin's heart was running away with alarm as the conversation became critical of Minna. If her parents or sister heard this, they'd be furious. What if he mentioned this chat to Minna? Kristin's words would sound as if she had been trying to make Minna look bad, which she wasn't—truly. She just wanted Mr. Cameron to go away and not tie her to an evening of nerve-racking conversation. He was much easier to daydream about than to talk to. “Have you dined?” she asked. “Do let me ring for—"

  "I am engaged to dine with your sister. It would hardly be courteous not to wait."

  "But—but—” Kristin trailed off, unable to think of anything to say. If he didn't eat, she couldn't, and she was so hungry. She and Genevieve were to have had a bite between patrols at the railroad station, but so many situations had arisen that they never got the chance.

  "My dear young lady—"

  Kristin blinked. Did he really think of her a
s a young lady? He usually treated her, when he noticed her at all, as if she were twelve instead of eighteen.

  "You look so pale—as if you might faint."

  "I never do,” she assured him.

  "No? I thought it might be a family weakness. Your sister has several times."

  Kristin shut her mouth on a gasp of surprise. Minna? Fainting? What an amazing idea. “Did you call a doctor?"

  Mr. Cameron laughed, not his usual polite, minor sound of amusement, but a major chord of genuine humor, rich and warm. Kristin found herself laughing too, although she couldn't imagine what she'd said that was so funny. If her sister had lost consciousness, she must have suffered a serious indisposition. Mr. Cameron had risen and was pouring brandy from her father's decanter into another balloon glass, although he had already helped himself and his first glass sat on the table beside his chair. He must be very amused indeed to forget that. Then, bending before her, he folded her hands around the second snifter.

  "You look as if you need it."

  "Oh, but I couldn't. I mean, I never—"

  "Just a sip.” He went back to his chair, leaving Kristin with tingling hands where his had rested over hers. “You're very pale."

  "But I assure you I'm not—"

  "No arguments. Brandy is an effective restorative."

  Reluctantly, Kristin bent her head and swallowed the tiniest portion. Even so, it burned all the way down her throat and caused a solid ache under her breast bone.

  "There, isn't that better?"

  Better? Kristin was afraid that some important part of her inner machinery was in the process of dissolving. She set the snifter down quickly.

  "No, no,” he said. “Take another swallow."

  She didn't want to. The first one had been awful, but how did one say no to such a self-possessed gentleman, the scion of an important banking family? Well, actually he was the third son, but still they were terribly wealthy. She hazarded another sip of the brandy and was again ignited from tongue to breastbone. Blinking, both hands trembling, she set the snifter down again.

  "What brought you home so late, Miss Traube?” he asked. “I know you must be desolated to miss the monthly choral entertainment."

  Kristin nodded weakly and wondered if he was being sarcastic. She was desolated to miss the dinner that preceded the singing, although the brandy had taken the edge off her appetite.

  "You were saying,” Mr. Cameron prodded.

  Kristin couldn't remember having said anything.

  "About your afternoon's activities."

  "I was rescuing young women."

  "Indeed?"

  "In railroad stations."

  "I hope you're not jumping in front of trains to pull these young ladies off the tracks,” said Mr. Cameron.

  "What would they be doing on the tracks?” Kristin asked, mystified.

  "I don't know, but that would seem to be the greatest danger in a depot."

  "Oh, not at all,” said Kristin. “The greatest danger is men.” She nodded and took a bit more brandy, to be companionable since Mr. Cameron had sampled his again. “Men lie in wait at the train station, on the lookout for innocent and naive young women."

  "Do they indeed? If that's the case, perhaps you should not be going there."

  Having taken another sip, Kristin considered his words, which meant that he thought her innocent and naive. “Women of comfortable circumstances,” she said, “have a duty to their less fortunate sisters. Mrs. Potter Palmer says so."

  "You know Mrs. Potter Palmer, do you?” He looked as if he didn't believe it.

  "I have known Mrs. Potter Palmer since I was sixteen,” replied Kristin. Brandy wasn't really so bad when you got used to it. At least it had dissolved the butterflies in her stomach.

  "How many months would that be, Miss Traube?” he asked humorously. “Two? Three?"

  "Two years,” said Kristin reproachfully, “and I take my social responsibilities quite seriously. Besides, you need not fear that I am myself in danger.” She was beginning to feel quite animated and gave him a brilliant smile. “I never go to the station unaccompanied. I go with Miss Genevieve Boyer, who is a pillar in the Catholic Women's Society for the Protection of Working Females."

  "Ah.” He nodded and drank from his own snifter. “In that case, what are these females doing in the railroad station when they should be working?"

  Kristin raised an unsteady hand to her temple. Carrying on an extended conversation with Mr. Cameron, something she had never done before, was proving to be as difficult and intimidating as she would have thought. “Well, they're looking for work, you see."

  "As trainmen, ticket sellers?"

  "No, what I mean is—well, I suppose they could be. Are women ever hired as trainmen and ticket takers?” Although Kristin visited the railroad station each week with Genevieve, she had never traveled anywhere on a train. In fact, she had never journeyed beyond seven miles from Chicago, and that in a buggy when her family took its yearly summer vacation in a country cottage. Mr. Traube, her father, said that, in emigrating to the United States from his native Germany, he'd done all the traveling he cared to do. Any sales of Traube's sausages that were negotiated outside the city were handled by Heinrich II, Ludovich, Otto, or Baldwin, Kristin's older brothers.

  "I haven't seen any women working on the railroad,” said Mr. Cameron, “but that doesn't mean there aren't any."

  Kristin wondered if Mr. Cameron was as little traveled as she. Perhaps in his family, third sons were not allowed to jaunt about the country. No, that was wrong. She knew that he had gone to Yale, which was a great distance away—on the eastern seaboard, she believed. “Well, anyway, these young women are not seeking employment on the railroad, at least not to my knowledge. They are generally girls from small towns and farms, who, for one reason or another, have left their families. In some cases, they have no families."

  She stopped, having lost sight of the point she was going to make. Mr. Cameron nodded encouragingly and poured more brandy into her snifter, then his own. She thanked him politely, thinking he was really much more friendly than she would have expected. Imagine, such a handsome, wealthy man being interested in anything she had to say. Dreams were one thing, but this was reality. Now what was it she had been saying?

  "So,” said Mr. Cameron, taking his seat, “they have left their families in search of work."

  "Oh, yes.” Kristin smiled at him happily. “In the city where there are jobs available for young women—respectable jobs, you understand. Father hires female sausage makers, for instance. And women take jobs as waitresses, laundresses, maids, and seamstresses. It's really quite amazing when you think of it—how many young women are in the work force. Unfortunately, they're not very well paid. Some of them, Genevieve tells me, go hungry."

  "I'm sorry to hear it,” said Mr. Cameron, tossing back his brandy and helping himself to more.

  Kristin was glad that he didn't offer to pour her another portion. She'd only taken one sip from her last, and she was feeling the most unsuitable desire to giggle, when she knew perfectly well that there was nothing funny about the situation of the poor female workers of Chicago. Even those lucky enough to be rescued by herself and Genevieve and installed in Genevieve's homelike boarding houses. Where they were well protected from the many snares that awaited innocent young women in the big city. And where they had hearty meals and clean beds and respectable companionship among others of their class.

  "It's very good of you to go to their rescue."

  "Thank you,” said Kristin. “It's quite exciting,” she confessed. “I never feel in danger myself because no one would think of gainsaying Genevieve."

  "You must tell me about this estimable woman."

  "Really? Would you like to know about Genevieve?” Kristin couldn't believe she was having such a stimulating conversation with Mr. Cameron. He was treating her as if she were a grown-up, which no one in her family ever did, although she didn't know why. Other girls of eighteen were trea
ted like women. Many were married, managing their own households, having babies. Kristin herself might have been married had it not taken so long to get Minna engaged. In the Traube family, the oldest daughter always married first. “Genevieve runs boarding houses for working women,” she explained. “Why, I should think that living in one of Genevieve's boarding houses would be almost as good as having a mother of your own."

  Kristin stopped for a moment, an uneasy thought crossing her mind. Having Genevieve as a mother might well be a happier situation than having Kristin's own mother, who wasn't very loving—at least, not to Kristin. Of course, in Genevieve's boarding house one would have no father, but Kristin had mixed emotions about her father as well. Sometimes he treated her like a princess, taking her down to the sausage factory and showing her off to his employees. But he didn't seem to think of her as a person, more as an objet d'art, like those hideous vases her mother paid so much money for and set around the house with dead foliage sticking out of them or gaudy feathers with eyes. Kristin didn't like peacock feathers. She always thought the bird was looking at her accusingly, as if she herself had denuded its tail. “And sometimes,” she mused aloud, “when he's not taking me to the sausage factory, he acts as if he doesn't like me at all."

  "Who?” asked Mr. Cameron.

  "What?"

  "Who acts as if he doesn't like you?"

  "Oh.” Kristin couldn't believe she'd said that aloud. “Men at the railroad station. There was one this afternoon who was quite irritated to have been deprived of his prey. In fact, he said to Genevieve that he'd rather have the blond one anyway. He meant me. Wasn't that horrible?"

  Mr. Cameron frowned and tipped back his brandy snifter for a long swallow. Kristin politely joined him. “Considerations of social conscience aside, I think you should not continue to visit railroad stations, Miss Traube. It sounds dangerous, and you are, although you don't seem to realize it, an exceedingly beautiful young girl."

  Kristin stared, surprised that Mr. Cameron had noticed what she looked like. She'd once wondered whether, if she were apart from her family, he could have picked her out in a crowd as someone he recognized. Now what had they been talking about? She took a hearty gulp to stimulate her memory. Oh. The man who said he'd rather have the blond one. “Well, I was in no danger, although it's very kind of you to be concerned for my welfare."