Gabriel's Fate Read online

  The only aspect of the whole thing that in any way softened Sophie’s anguish was knowing Joshua shared an eternal resting place with her mother and father and a whole host of Madrigals past. It was idiotic of her, but she liked knowing he was with family. Her family. “What an ass I am sometimes, Tybalt.”

  Tybalt’s curly tail wagged.

  She didn’t speak for a minute, but let her mind drift here and there. After only a few seconds, it drifted to Gabriel. She could still hear his voice combined with Juniper’s as they sang “Praise to the Lord.” He must have practiced his singing a lot, because even a fine voice couldn’t achieve that timbre without lots of practice. Sophie had always admired deep voices in men. Gabriel’s had sounded like black velvet.

  “He probably sang during his father’s religious services. Helped the old man save souls by touching them with music. Oh, dear, I’m being cynical again, aren’t I?” She knew cynicism was unladylike. She didn’t care.

  Tybalt yawned. Sophie grinned and decided that coming into this world as a pampered pug wouldn’t be half-bad, if all the positions for lazy house cats were already filled.

  It took her almost an hour to get her nerves under control so that she could rejoin Juniper in the smoking car. She didn’t like leaving Juniper by herself for very long at any one time, because Juniper attracted people, and she was indiscriminate. She was prone to allowing all sorts of human beings into her orbit, from princes to bums. Juniper loved them all. She was as unlike Sophie in that regard as she was in almost every other regard.

  Answering the ring of her bell, the porter brought her warm water. She washed her face, squinting into a mirror. “I’ll never get my eyes to unpuff.” She looked as if she’d just endured a prolonged crying fit, actually, which she had.

  She tried, however, to repair the damage. She even went so far as to use a little powder and rouge, hoping by those artificial means to get people to focus on her cheeks rather than on her eyes, which were still swollen and bloodshot.

  Lord, the things women did so that men wouldn’t despise them. Men, of all the insignificant creatures on this unhappy earth. She knew she was going to all this trouble for Gabriel Caine’s sake, so he would think she was pretty, and she reviled herself for it even as she brushed out her curly blond hair and wound it up in a new knot which she pinned at the back of her neck.

  Sometimes, Sophie wished she were more like her aunt. She’d love to be able to accept the world as Juniper did, unconditionally and liberally, unfettered by resentments or expectations. She’d also love to be able to take all the hog slop attaching itself to the family business with grace and faith, as Juniper did. Sophie no longer believed in faith. Or grace. If she’d ever had any of the former, she’d lost it when she lost Joshua. And if grace were being bestowed upon anyone, anywhere, it wasn’t her. She’d been in the other room when grace had been handed out. She sighed, wondering if that made her a heathen.

  When she reached the smoking car, a wave of trepidation assaulted her. Both Gabriel and Juniper had been worried about her. Had Juniper been so upset, she’d divulged Sophie’s secret to Gabriel? If she had, Sophie didn’t think she’d ever be able to forgive her for it. Joshua had been Sophie’s, and Sophie’s alone, and it was up to her to decide who deserved to be told about him. It would hurt Sophie greatly to have to turn against her aunt, but Joshua was more important than Juniper, Sophie, and Gabriel Caine combined. And even Tybalt.

  She was more than surprised when she entered the car and beheld Juniper, Gabriel, and Dmitri, of all poor lost Russian souls, laughing up a storm. The scene was so unusual that she had to stop and rub her eyes. She remembered she’d put blacking on her eyelashes and hoped she hadn’t smudged it. But Dmitri was laughing. She’d never seen him laugh.

  Loath to intrude, she hesitated at the door to the carriage. Several men who had graced the smoking car with their presence after she’d left it eyed her with appreciation. She scowled at them and saw them shrink back and turn their heads away, and she felt a little better about life.

  But should she join that jolly group? Was it fair of her to do so? She knew good and well that she could dampen any frivolous gathering without half trying, and she didn’t want to do it now. They were having fun. Sophie had forgotten how to have fun about a year or so ago.

  All at once, she felt mortally alone and left out. She had just made up her mind to turn around and go back to her sleeper, when Gabriel spotted her. Blast.

  He charged out of his seat and headed straight at her. Because she’d been disconcerted to see those three people acting in so chummy a manner—without her—she frowned as he approached. This wasn’t the same warding-off scowl she’d used on the strangers, but one of the ones Gabriel was probably accustomed to receiving from her by this time.

  “I don’t want to interrupt you,” she said before he had a chance to talk.

  “Don’t be more of a twit than you can help being, Sophie.”

  She drew herself up straight and her frown turned into a glower. Unfortunately, he was used to receiving her glower, too, as his next words showed.

  “And don’t look at me like that, either.” He laughed.

  Sophie was offended. “Thank you very much. I don’t believe I care to socialize at the moment.”

  “Well, now, isn’t that too damned bad?” Gabriel still sounded cheerful, but he got a grip on Sophie’s arm that was going to leave bruises unless she was much mistaken. “We’ve been waiting for you. Dmitri’s found something you’ll enjoy.”

  “Dmitri?” This was a new twist.

  “Yes, indeedy. He’s got something really keen. I know you’ll love it.”

  Sophie doubted it, but she respected Dmitri and would not hurt his feelings if she could help it. She huffed irritably, but said, “Oh, very well. Here, make yourself useful and carry Tybalt’s basket.”

  “Sure thing.” He took the big wicker basket and, still maintaining his firm grip on her arm, propelled her and the basket back to where the Madrigal company had assembled.

  Aunt Juniper, her eyes as bright as stars, beamed at her expansively. “Oh, Sophie, you must see this! Dmitri bought it from a Gypsy in Tucson.”

  “I didn’t know there were Gypsies in Tucson.” Although she tried not to sound grumpy for Juniper and Dmitri’s sake, her words were a trifle sullen.

  Juniper, as might have been expected, didn’t notice. Thank God for thick-headed aunts, Sophie thought with a marked lack of charity.

  When she looked at Dmitri, shock replaced spite. Dmitri was smiling at her, too. Dmitri! Smiling and laughing. Dmitri, the morose and cranky Russian dwarf who, in Sophie’s mind, had every reason in the world to be morose and cranky.

  Would wonders never cease? With an effort that nearly made her faint because she’d again laced her stays tightly, Sophie returned his smile. She liked Dmitri. She wouldn’t be mean to him under any circumstances.

  Fortunately, she felt no such constraints regarding Gabriel Caine, so she took her shortness of temper out on him. Snatching her arm away from him, she growled “You may unhand me now, Gabriel.”

  “Gladly,” he said.

  Sophie heard some asperity in the one word, and was glad of it. Why should she be the only one to suffer, after all? Even as the unworthy thought manifested itself, she knew she was being unreasonable—it wasn’t Gabriel’s fault that Joshua had died, or that “Amazing Grace” had been played at his funeral. Ah, well, that’s the way the world turns. None of that was her fault either, but she’d been made to suffer unconscionably for the idiosyncrasies of a capricious fate.

  It seemed that Gabriel wasn’t one to hold a grudge, because his tone was quite pleasant when he said, “This thing is all the crack, Sophie. You’ll love it.”

  “Will I?”

  He laughed as he set Tybalt’s basket on the bench and helped her to sit. “Of course, you will. It’s right up your alley. According to Miss Juniper, people have been consulting them for ages, but they’ve only recently gained w
ide-spread popularity in the States.”

  Because she felt mean and surly, Sophie muttered, “We’re no longer in the States. We’re in one of the States’ more despicable territories.”

  “Stuff and nonsense. You’re just being a pain in the neck for its own sake.” With undiminished cheer, Gabriel took a spot on the bench next to her.

  Sophie tried to wriggle farther away from him, but the basket was in the way. She felt defeated. He was right about her, blast it. Her insides hurt, and she wanted to inflict pain on others. Not a very noble ambition. In fact, Sophie felt a bit guilty about it. Neither Juniper nor Dmitri deserved her bad temper. For that matter, although she hated to admit it, neither did Gabriel. It went against the grain, but she silently swore that she would at least try to be civil to everyone. Or, if that proved too much of a hurdle to leap, she would be civil to Juniper and Dmitri.

  Her task became easier when she realized the plaything in question was a board and planchette. The board had the alphabet printed in an arc in its upper reaches, and numbers below. Also printed on the board were the words “Yes” and “No,” one on each side.

  “A spirit board!” she exclaimed, genuinely intrigued. She’d heard people call this type of device by different names, but she’d always preferred “spirit board.”

  “Isn’t it wonderful, Sophie?” Juniper had her fingers resting with eiderdown gentleness on the planchette. Dmitri, seated across from Juniper, had his hands positioned likewise. “Ask it something, Sophie. Do, dear.” Juniper, her face a perfect picture of ecstatic whimsy, gleamed up at her.

  Since the only questions Sophie felt like asking the board at the moment were questions she didn’t want anyone else to hear, she asked a question of her aunt instead. “I’m surprised the thing works here—assuming, of course, that it works at all. I mean, doesn’t the planchette need some kind of spirit to guide it? There must have been hundreds—even thousands—of passengers on this train since it started running.”

  “You’re such a skeptic,” Gabriel said with a laugh. “Miss Juniper explained it all to me. One need never worry about finding a spirit to assist one, because there are the spirits of generations of our ancestors floating around everywhere.”

  Sophie eyed him, and he winked at her. For some inexplicable reason, his wink reassured her. For a moment there, she’d almost thought he actually believed in this folderol. It came as an unpleasant shock to her when she realized she’d begun to look upon Gabriel Caine as her ally in an insane world. This would never do.

  Because she didn’t have the time or privacy to contemplate this current disaster with any kind of detachment, she decided to shelve it for the nonce. “I beg your pardon, Juniper. Did you connect with a spirit?”

  “Oh, my, yes!” Juniper cried delightedly. “And it’s a perfectly fascinating one, too.”

  “Really.”

  She must have sounded dryer than Gabriel thought appropriate, because he nudged her with an elbow. She turned to frown at him. He grinned back. “Don’t be such an old stick, Sophie. Ask the thing a question.”

  “Please do, Sophie. This is so fascinating. Why, it’s already told Dmitri that he won’t ever have to return to Russia. He’d been afraid of having to go back, you know, for some time.”

  “Why would he be afraid about having to return to Russia?” Turning to Dmitri, Sophie asked, “Were you fearful of some mad Russians kidnapping you and tossing you onto a boat or something? Like the British Navy used to impress sailors or something?” The scenario sounded mighty fanciful to Sophie.

  “Nyet.” Dmitri shrugged. “Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, anarchists, revolutionaries. They’re all over the world.”

  “And they want you?” She didn’t understand.

  Dmitri shrugged again, as if to say he didn’t know, but he wouldn’t put anything past the political radicals rampaging through Eastern Europe at the moment. Gabriel nudged her again, harder this time.

  Turning and giving him a ferocious scowl, she snapped, “Will you please stop that?”

  “Not until you quit being crabby.”

  “I’m not being crabby!”

  “You are, too.”

  She huffed indignantly. “Oh, you’re impossible.”

  “Probably, but why don’t you quit stalling and ask the board a question?”

  Juniper said doubtfully, “I’m not sure it will answer a question from you unless you’re handling the planchette, dear. Would you like to take my place?”

  “No.” Perceiving the answer was too crisp and might be interpreted by the sensitive Juniper as a snub, Sophie enlarged on her answer. “That is, why don’t I ask it something and we can see if it works this way.”

  “All right, dear.”

  Sophie shook her head, amazed as always by her aunt’s sunny disposition. Why couldn’t Sophie have been born with a bright nature?

  It occurred to her that perhaps she had been. Indeed, until her sixteenth year, she had been relatively good-natured and even-tempered, if not exactly happy. Then a man had come into her life, ruined it, and she’d been a grump ever since. Which meant, now that she thought about it, she’d given that traitorous, conniving, sneaking coward of a man an awful lot of power over herself.

  She didn’t like thinking these things, so she scrambled for a question to ask the board. “Um, will we enjoy our stay in Los Angeles?”

  The planchette seemed to vibrate under the fingers of its human controls, then zipped over to the “Yes.” Before Sophie could exclaim in pretended enthusiasm about the answer, it made a sudden dash to the other side of the board and landed on the “No.” From there, it proceeded to slide back and forth between the two words. Sophie, Juniper, Gabriel, and Dmitri watched its antics with varying degrees of interest, suspicion, and doubt.

  “Are you sure you’re not moving it yourself?” Sophie asked Juniper after several seconds of that.

  “Good heavens, no. This is very unsettling.” Juniper’s happy smile tipped upside down.

  The quartet continued to observe the planchette’s capers for another moment or two.

  “Can’t it make up its mind?” Sophie asked presently.

  “I don’t know.” Juniper was frowning in concentration as the planchette zigged and zagged.

  “Hmmm,” said Gabriel. “Maybe it’s trying to tell us that your stay in Los Angeles will be a mixture of success and failure.”

  He glanced at his fellow spirit-board watchers as if seeking assent or denial. He looked sheepish to Sophie, who gathered he felt silly saying such things about a piece of painted board and a triangular-shaped wooden disk glued to little wooden feet. As if a couple of pieces of wood could tell the future. It was laughable.

  The planchette made one last dash across the board and landed on the “Yes.” They all stared at it.

  Gabriel cleared his throat. “Does that mean our stay in Los Angeles will offer both success and failure?”

  The planchette quivered and remained on the “Yes.”

  “Hmmm.” Gabriel, evidently nonplused by this communication from beyond, sat back as if he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  Sophie could. To the devil with questioning that nonsensical board. She concentrated on her aunt. “You didn’t finish telling me about the spirit, Aunt Juniper. Does it have a name?” Perhaps she shouldn’t have called it an it.

  Dear Lord, she was acting as though she believed in this tripe.

  “My, yes, dear. In fact, he’s one of the more fascinating communicants I’ve been in touch with over the years.”

  “Really?” Sophie made an effort to sound less skeptical and succeeded to a degree.

  Juniper nodded. “Yes. He’s an Indian.”

  “Mercy.” And, what’s more, he was an Indian who could understand English and read well enough to spell out answers. “Any particular tribe?” She decided not to ask about how he became conversant with a foreign tongue.

  Juniper’s brow wrinkled, giving her the appearance of an elderly, sweet-natured spri
te. Watching her, Sophie was reminded how much she loved her. Juniper Madrigal never had and never would hurt another living being, and Sophie admired her for it. For perhaps the thousandth time, she wished she were more like her aunt.

  “Well,” Juniper said dubiously, “he claims to be from a tribe I’ve never heard of. Not that I know much about our native Indians, you understand, but one does read things. I’ve heard of the Navajos, and the Hopis, and the Apaches and Comanches and so forth. This one was new to me.”

  Striving to hold her impatience in check and willing herself to recollect all of Juniper’s finer qualities, Sophie smiled tenderly. “It might be a new one for all of us.”

  “Do you think so, dear?” Juniper’s expression of doubt eased, and she smiled happily. “Although I haven’t studied Indian cultures extensively, I’d hate to think I’m not at least conversant with the names of most of the tribes. After all, Indians make wonderful media.”

  “Media?” Gabriel sounded doubtful.

  Sophie enlightened him. “She means as a medium to the Other Side, Gabriel.” She gave him a saccharine smile. He frowned back at her.

  “Indeed. Well, there you are. I’ve never heard of his tribe, at all accounts. I wonder if Mr. Caine has. After all, he’s traveled widely.” She smiled beatifically at Gabriel.

  Rapidly losing her vow to remain patient and polite, Sophie smiled through her clenched teeth. “We’ll never know,” she said, “if you don’t tell us what it is.”

  Juniper blinked. “Oh! Did I fail to mention the name of the tribe?”

  Still smiling, although it felt more like a grimace by this time, Sophie said, “Yes. You failed to mention it.”

  “Dear me, I’m getting more and more absent-minded, aren’t I?” Juniper gave a little giggle as if her failing memory were something of a joke.

  Apparently, she recognized a lessening of control on Sophie’s part, because she quit dithering. “This gentleman’s name is Flying Hawk, and in life he belonged to a tribe of people he calls the Anasazi.”

  “The what?” No longer peeved, Sophie peered closely at her aunt, wondering if Juniper had made it up. But no. Juniper would never do that. She respected this garbage too much.