Angelia frowned. “Come now, you must realize we can’t be there. We’ve been discovered in every town, every city we’ve landed in, and no lawyer’s been able to bail us out. Someone, somewhere, really wants us found. You don’t suppose Elmer Riley—that big plantation owner—is behind this, do you?” Her frown deepened. “Is there more that happened in Mississippi?Something that I don’t know? Please, if there’s more than simply a girl…”
Julian faced away from her, his expression lost to her.
She continued, “Papa’s lawyers think they can make a case without us being there. But you know all this, and that Papa’s case, stating that we were acting in self-defense, will show that we didn’t commit murder.”
“Yes. But.” Julian raised an eyebrow. “Papa is pleading to the authorities where?”
“In Washington.”
“That’s right,” said Julian, “in Washington…which will have about as much authority in the South as a Japanese samurai in the state of Virginia.”
Angelia let out her breath. “Julian, please listen to reason. You can’t do this.”
“Well, I am.”
“But—”
“End of argument. I’ve stood your tirades this long, and I won’t stand it any longer. We need to leave this garrison and get ourselves to Santa Fe.”
“But—”
Her pleas landed on deaf ears. Julian had already turned his back on her and was marching off in the opposite direction.
Darn! How did he do it? How did he manage to twist the facts around until he had her feeling as though she were some loathsome creature? One who particularly liked to tax her brother’s charms?
As Angelia watched her brother pace away, she pulled her bottom lip into a worry line. Darn, darn and double darn. This scouting business was a fine mess—definitelynotwhat she wanted to do.
Whatshereally wanted to do was to go back to Mississippi, confront the authorities, tell them what had happened—that the whole matter had been an accident, an incident of self-defense—take whatever was coming to her and be done with it.
But she couldn’t do that. Not now. Not after discovering what else Julian had done, back there in Mississippi. Goodness knows he’d be hung on sight.
How could he have done it, she wondered for the umpteenth time. How could he have set out to win the daughter of Elmer Riley, the richest plantation owner in Mississippi? Of course, Julian’s intentions had been good. Of course he had meant to marry the girl. But that didn’t excuse him being alone with her—without a chaperone—for an entire hour.
But nothing had come of it, had it?
Why, oh why had he picked Elmer Riley’s daughter?
Certainly the girl was winsome, but the father… Truth be told, the mere presence of Mr. Riley anywhere near her caused Angelia to flinch. The looks he gave her, the stares—as though she were some bargain in a bootlegger’s auction.
Even now, the simple act of thinking of the man sent shivers up and down Angelia’s spine.
But all that was behind them. After all, the man’s influence over them had surely ended when she and Julian had crossed the state line. Or had it?
If that were so, why were she and Julian still on the run, still trying to escape the authorities?
Angelia sighed. She had no answers to this, and perhaps a hundred other questions.
Upon reflection, Angelia considered that perhaps their troubles did not really concern Elmer Riley, his daughter or the state of Mississippi. No, perhaps the actual problem was Julian himself.
He hadn’t been telling her the complete truth when a month ago he had confessed to arranging a duel in order to defend their father’s honor. Indeed, that match had been devised as much to protect his own honor as that of their father’s, something Julian had kept neatly hidden from her until recently.
And now, here he was, off to scout for some wagon train that was leaving for Council Grove in a week or so, there to meet up with other merchants who would be making the spring trek into Santa Fe.
Scouting, of all things—an occupation he knew nothing about.
As a sense of unreality swept over her, Angelia wondered, as she had often done in her past, if there had been some accident at her birth. Had some other woman borne a child at the same time as her mother, allowing for a switch of infants?
If it were true, it would explain several moments in her life when she had felt completely foreign to her own family. Although, if she were to be fair, she might admit that perhaps she took after her mother. She couldn’t be sure, of course, since her mother had died shortly after giving birth to Julian.
