It was Madeleine who showed no inhibition in giving voice to what was on her mind. “You’re very pretty.”
“Oh.” A small vertical crease appeared between Remington’s arched black eyebrows as they drew together. “Well, thank you, I suppose.”
Madeleine nodded gravely. “My father’s handsomer.”
“I’m sure you’re right.”
Mrs. Bancroft placed a hand at her daughter’s back and gently rubbed it. “That’s enough, Maddie.” She raised her eyes to Remington. “Are you steady on your feet now?”
He was afraid to nod, afraid the motion would make his head swim, so he answered instead. “I am.”
“Then shouldn’t you go forward and help the men do what is necessary to move this train?”
Before he could answer, Mrs. Tyler interjected, “I believe Mr. Frost has more immediate concerns. Isn’t that correct? You were inquiring about Mrs. Apple. I would like to understand your intentions.”
One of his eyebrows kicked up. “My intentions? My intentions are simply to find her, effect a rescue, and deliver her unharmed to the Twin Star spread outside of Frost Falls.”
“FrostFalls,” said Mrs. Tyler. “That’s you?”
“My great-grandfather. He settled there, ranched, the town came later. To your point about my intentions, my father remarried a while back. Phoebe Apple is his wife’s younger sister. I think you’re wrong about her beingMrs.Apple.”
“I did not mishear her. And then there’s the child.”
“Child?” Remington looked from Mrs. Tyler to Madeleine. The little girl’s eyes widened and her golden ringlets bounced as she shook her head. “Whose child?”
“Her husband’s.” Mrs. Tyler ignored Remington Frost’s impatient sigh and put her hands together, extending themabout four inches from the cinched waist of her skirt. “Seven months gone would be my guess, although she told me birth was imminent.”
Remington was reckoned to have a better than fair poker face at the card table. Some remarked that it was excellent. At the moment, though, what it was, was astonished, and he could not make it otherwise. He braced himself by placing his hands on the seat backrests on either side of him. “She’s pregnant?”
“I suppose that knock to your head accounts for you being slow on the draw. That’s what I am telling you. It certainly appears she is carrying a child.”
As quick as that, Remington’s astonishment was replaced by suspicion. He did not think he had mistaken the almost infinitesimal pause that Mrs. Tyler took before she answered him. His dark eyes narrowed as he studied the older woman. He thought she was trying to tell him something without saying it straight. He could not be sure unless he asked. So he did. “Itappears? You have reason to doubt it?”
Another pause. “Perhaps. I don’t like saying so, especially as she showed such courage.”
“Mrs. Tyler. I need to know. I wasn’t there when she boarded in Chicago, and I barely caught sight of her when she changed trains in Saint Louis.” He opened his duster, reached inside his jacket, and produced a photograph. “This is all I had to identify her.”
Mrs. Tyler regarded the photograph with a critical eye while Madeleine craned her head and stood on tiptoe to see it. “It’s a fair likeness. Why didn’t you introduce yourself to her? You said she’s family.”
“I’d be curious, too, if I were you, but I hope you will believe me when I tell you I had my reasons and they would take too long to explain. I need to find her, and I can’t imagine that it’s not important for me to know whether or not she’s carrying a child.”
There was yet another hesitation, this time a long one while Mrs. Tyler looked Remington up and down.
“Well?” he asked.
“The truth is, I just don’t know. I had no reason to doubt her until she fell on me when the train jerked and jumped. My forearm was wedged between us. Right here.” She showed him by placing her forearm against her abdomen. “Mrs. Apple felt... well...”
“Yes?”
“She felt lumpy.”
Mrs. Bancroft’s lips parted on an indrawn breath. Madeleine giggled.
“Lumpy,” Remington repeated without inflection.
“Yes. It struck me as strange. In other circumstances I might have inquired, but the circumstances being what they were, I did not.”
“All right.” Remington accepted this bit of intelligence without making judgment. He would have to learn the truth for himself, but at least he knew there was a truth to uncover. The pregnancy could explain why his father thought it necessary to shadow Phoebe. If it had been possible, Thaddeus would have asked him to chaperone her from the moment she boarded in New York, but business had only taken him east as far as the Chicago stockyards. After receiving the telegram, and armed with the photograph, he bought a ticket for the first train available to him and the two thoroughbreds he had purchased. Shipping the horses complicated his departure, and that was how he came to miss connecting with Phoebe Apple in Chicago. It was a piece of luck that he crossed her path in Saint Louis. And then again, maybe it wasn’t.
