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Chapter Three
Cal caught the railing on the rear car with the tips of his fingers, swinging his legs inward to avoid smashing them on the station wall. He wasn’t quite fast enough, and the soles of his feet brushed the wall, knocking him just hard enough that his hold on the train car began to slip. “Feck! Feck, feck, feck!”
One hand came loose, and Cal’s body twisted so he had a perfect view of the tracks that would smash his face and, no doubt, the rest of his body. He tightened his grip and tried to swing back, but the train was moving too fast now and he didn’t have the leverage to fight against the wind pressing him back.
He closed his eyes as his fingers began to slip, and then something warm and solid clamped over his hand. “Give me your other hand!”
He twisted his head. There was Bridget Murray—Miss Murray, thank you very much—with her gloved hand tight on his and her other held out. The wind blew her skirts and the brim of her hat back, but that was as much as the clothing deigned to defy her.
“I can’t!” he yelled. “Let go. I’ll find another way to get there.” If he didn’t die from the impact of his fall.
“Give me your hand,” she ordered. Her green eyes glared at him, daring him to disobey her. “You will board this train.”
When he’d been a lad, his mam had scraped enough blunt together to send him to school for a year. His teacher, a Miss Pratt, hadn’t been nearly as pretty or well-shaped as Bridget Murray, but she’d had that same authoritarian tone. He’d had dreams about that teacher giving him some rather naughty orders.
“Mr. Kelly!” Miss Murray squeezed his hand tighter, and he could almost feel the pinch through the growing numbness. “Your hand.”
A dozen reasons this would not work popped into Cal’s mind, but who was he to disregard Miss Murray’s commands? He swung his legs toward the car, giving his body enough momentum that he could almost catch the rail with his dangling hand. Miss Murray caught the free hand and yanked it to the rail. She was obviously stronger than she looked.
But he wasn’t out of danger yet. He still had to climb onto the car, and his muscles were fatigued and his strength fading.
“Climb up,” she ordered.
“I knew you would say that.”
“Hurry. I have you.”
She didn’t have him. He was one jolt away from falling backward and breaking every bone in his body.
As though she could read his thoughts, she narrowed her eyes. “Mr. Kelly, I said to climb up. Hurry up before I lose my patience.”
Cal wanted to laugh. As though he gave a fig for her patience. Just the same, he closed his aching fingers tighter on the railing and brought his knees inward. Sweating and out of breath, he managed to brace his legs on the rail and ease first one arm over the rail and then the other. Miss Murray didn’t let him go. She was right there, her face so close he could have kissed her freckles, urging him onward.
When he finally tumbled over the rail in a bone-jarring crash, she bent over him and looked down. He looked up at her, a prim woman in severe black.
“Do you know, Mr. Kelly, I believe you may be more trouble than you’re worth.” And she stepped away from him, slid the train car door open, and stepped inside.
Cal huffed out a breath. She hadn’t even helped him to his feet.
When he finally gained his balance and stumbled into the car, it took a good five minutes to rid his ears of the ringing from the wind pounding his head. He’d never been on a train before, and he didn’t particularly like it. Through the windows, small as they were in what appeared to be a luggage car, dark fields and towns raced by. It all seemed a blur, or perhaps his head was still reeling from the hit he’d given.
Miraculously, his trousers hadn’t ripped, and his coat was still serviceable. He pushed his hair back, adjusted his cuffs, and walked haltingly through the car and into the next. A man in a gray uniform who was taking tickets met him there. Cal thought how ironic it would be if he’d made it this far only to have lost his ticket, but it was still in his coat pocket. He presented it to the porter, glancing about the passengers seated in the car. No Miss Murray. The porter notched the ticket then handed it back. For a woman who always seemed to be exactly where he needed her, she was nowhere to be found now.
“Have you lost your way, sir?” the porter, an older man with a droopy mustache, asked.
Cal couldn’t recall the last time someone had called him sir. As to whether he’d lost his way, that had happened long before the porter had intervened.
“Maybe,” he answered.
“First-class is that way.” He pointed to the other end of the car.
“Right.” Cal started forward, trying to keep his balance as he moved. At the door, he saw this car had a letter K. He looked down at his own ticket, and thanks to Miss Pratt, read that his own car was D.
He stumbled through car after car until he finally paused outside D. A dark-skinned porter stood outside that door, and when Cal approached, he held out his hand. “Ticket, please.”
Cal handed it over, and to his surprise, the porter moved aside. “Welcome, sir. I’m Goodman. Let me know if there’s anything you need.”
Cal could think of a number of things he needed, but he only nodded and moved forward. The porter slid the door open for him.
