The Northern Devil Read online

  The only man he could trust at his side in this fight, because of both the subject and the possible weapons, bowed. “It will be an honor.”

  “Name your weapons, Muldrup, either guns or Bowie knives,” Lucas snapped.

  “I thought Philadelphia aristocrats raised their sons to act as gentlemen, Grainger. But resigning your commission? Naming an Irish teamster as your second? What the hell are you planning to do?”

  Good; he’d rattled Muldrup out of his usual arrogant calm.

  “Leave your bones for the vultures, just as you left Ambrosia.”

  Too many women had gone through too much because of these bastards. He could have shot them down, like the curs they were. But no—they were going to see the gates of hell slowly open for them and know exactly why they died.

  Muldrup’s eyes searched Lucas’s and found only murderous intent. Something passed between them, a communication beyond words, two fighters measuring each other before the bout for who’d be left standing at the end. It jarred him into speech. “The courts won’t do anything. There’s no proof that Livermore and I—”

  The damning words hung on the clean mountain air for a long minute.

  Lucas watched him stonily, his fingers a hairsbreadth from his Colt. He hadn’t needed the admission; he’d recognized their bloody handiwork from seven years ago in Mississippi.

  “What the hell are you challenging us to a duel over the likes of her for?” Livermore broke the taut silence. “Duels are affairs of honor among gentlemen. She was only a whore!”

  Lucas flung his arm out, his heavy Colt cocked and pointing straight at Livermore. He’d loved her too long and too strongly to have her called that by anyone, even knowing how much truth rang through those words.

  He’d probably never be lucky enough to get the drop on Muldrup. Didn’t matter; he’d kill Livermore here and now for insulting his late mistress, and worry about destroying Muldrup later. “If you call her that again, I won’t even grant you the courtesy of a duel before sending you to meet your Maker.”

  Livermore growled, unfortunately not quite elitist—or stupid—enough to openly challenge Lucas.

  Donovan shifted in his saddle, clearly bringing his own weapons close to hand.

  “You destroyed our careers back at Vicksburg,” Muldrup snarled.

  “I reported you for outraging and nearly killing a young lady of good family,” Lucas snapped back. “The Army meted out justice when it court-martialed and convicted you.”

  “Based on your testimony! You broke the code of silence when you informed on us.”

  “What code of silence exists when a woman’s life and honor is at stake? Even so—after all that, you still managed to have your sentences reduced to pre-war rank and time served, in light of the wartime emergency.”

  “Our services to the Union were recognized.”

  “In other words, you skirted the law and your friends rewarded you for it.”

  “Not much of a reward, when the damn conviction still hangs over our records like a shroud, preventing us from being promoted beyond our pre-War ranks!”

  “And this time you won’t even have that much grace,” Lucas snarled.

  “I choose revolvers,” Muldrup announced silkily, picking up the gauntlet.

  “To send you to hell,” Livermore sneered, falling in behind Muldrup as he had since West Point.

  “To become vulture bait,” Lucas corrected and swung down from his horse.

  “While you and I, Livermore, will make sure that this duel is conducted with all propriety,” Donovan added, his voice edged with the same crisp menace that had made millionaire mine owners reconsider double-crossing him.

  Livermore opened his mouth, shut it after a look at Donovan’s shotgun, and reluctantly joined his fellow second.

  “Code Duello or Wilson’s Code of Honor?” Donovan inquired, as if arranging a duel was an everyday occurrence for him. His accent was now as purely upper-crust English as if he was standing in the halls of Westminster.

  Livermore hesitated.

  “Oh, make it the Code Duello!” Muldrup exclaimed, pulling on his heavy overcoat. “We can’t reach any sandbanks without wading through icy water and there’s no question of sheriffs or prosecutors to chase any of us. So we’ll use the older code.”

  “The Code Duello then,” Livermore repeated obediently.

  “As the challenged, I select the ground. We’d best make it that meadow between the river and the forest.”

  “And I select the distance—ten paces,” Lucas snapped back.

  “I presume that the time will be here and now.” Donovan remarked, taking up his duty as Lucas’s second to fix the time and terms of firing.

  Muldrup looked up from unloading his Colt. The seconds would also reload their principals’ weapons in each others’ presence. “You presume correctly.”

  “Firing will be done on the count of ten, which either I or the lieutenant will give.”

  The two officers glanced at each other.

  “I’ll be happy to let you do it. Your voice carries better than mine,” Livermore said silkily.

  Lucas’s mouth thinned. Was that when they hoped to do mischief?

  “I believe only one weapon for each of the principals. Livermore?”

  “Certainly. It specifically says the second weapon provides the second shot. We’ll fully load the revolvers instead.”

  The eighteenth-century Code Duello had originated when pistols had only one shot. It therefore allowed participants to choose between one weapon or two. If one weapon was chosen, then it could be loaded with a single bullet or fully loaded.

  “Excellent.”

  The two seconds bowed to each other in full harmony for the first time.

  Lucas hadn’t carried six bullets in his six-shot Army Colt since he’d ridden against the Rebels during the War, thinking it far safer to carry five. Any misstep could make his gun go off unexpectedly, causing damage to himself or others. At the prospect of doing so now, the old, familiar coolness of combat settled over him.

  “The Code Duello also provides for the seconds to be armed,” Livermore suggested.

  Lucas stiffened, caught in the middle of unloading his Colt.

  “But not to fire. An excellent idea,” Donovan agreed.

  Lucas took a deep breath and shook out the last few rounds. At least he could be certain that Donovan was a far better shot than Livermore.

  The great golden carpet of frozen grasses ran long and narrow beside the frozen river just before the great waterfall, with the aspen forest crimson bright on the other side where it flowed up the mountain. They left the horses back in the trees, well away from where they’d fight. The four men stood slightly apart in pairs on its edge.

  Donovan handed Lucas his revolver. “No tricks in how the Colts were loaded,” he said softly. “No guarantees about anything else.”

  Lucas shrugged. He’d removed his gloves, for accuracy and speed. “Just keep Livermore out of my way and I’ll deal with Muldrup.”

  “You have my word.” The Irishman’s smile turned edged. “If things were different, I’d fight you for the chance to gut the bastard Apache-style.”

  Lucas chuckled. “If I don’t finish him in six shots, your Bowie knife can have the rest.”

  Donovan slapped him on the back. “May all the saints be with you, boyo.”

  Lucas walked out into the meadow, time slowing until he could hear his watch ticking off the minutes and seconds. The grass crunched under his feet and stabbed needle-sharp against his knees, golden and tipped with sparkling ice crystals in the rising sun, like a royal carpet.

  He took up position with his back against Muldrup, both of them holding their heavy Army Colts pointed into the air.

  Donovan and Livermore stood at the meadow’s edge near the horses, but more toward Muldrup’s direction. Still, Lucas turned his full attention on Muldrup, confident that Donovan would handle any threat from Livermore.

  “Gentlemen, is t
here any chance of a reconciliation between you?” Donovan called. A pro forma request but his duty as a second.

  Livermore snickered.

  “Hell, no!” Muldrup shouted. “Will you hurry up and start?”

  Lucas took a deep breath, centering himself in the moment as Little and his Indian scouts had taught him. “One,” counted Donovan. “Two, three…”

  Lucas listened for his enemies with more than his ears, using more of the skills Little had given him. Muldrup’s footsteps crunched through the ice, their rhythm carrying steadily through the ground and into his own feet.

  “Five, six…”

  What the hell? Lucas’s eyes flickered to the side. Livermore was edging away from Donovan, into a spot where Muldrup could easily see him.

  “Seven, eight…”

  Muldrup’s footsteps were no longer solid. Ice crackled briefly from where Livermore stood.

  And Lucas knew exactly where the first attack would come from. He dropped facedown into the frozen grasses.

  Livermore’s shot rang out, drowning Donovan’s count of “nine.” It would have taken Lucas’s head, if he’d still been standing.

  Booted feet ran for the forest.

  A shotgun’s distinctive boom echoed around the high valley. Livermore’s scream trailed into silence. The seconds had played their hand; it was time for the principals to act.

  Lucas sprang to his feet. “Muldrup!”

  The murderer halted, a handful of strides from the blood crimson aspens. He turned slowly to face Lucas, defiance written on his face. Muldrup had lost his advantage of faster speed on the draw. Now it would be a contest of pure marksmanship.

  Lucas leveled his Colt and lined the sights up on Muldrup’s chest, matching his enemy’s movements. Time slowed until every beat of his heart, every pulse of blood through his veins, was a distinct event. Even the waterfall behind him seemed to hold its breath. He saw the puff of smoke from Muldrup’s Colt, but it was distant and unimportant.

  He exhaled softly, his hand and arm finally perfectly still—and fired. His enemy’s bullet whizzed past his ear.

  Muldrup dropped onto his face and didn’t move.

  Lucas slowly holstered his Colt and pulled the velvet jeweler’s pouch out of his heavy jacket’s inside pocket.

  Donovan came up beside him, his shotgun slung over his shoulder.

  Moving slowly now, his fingers stiff with more than just the mountains’ chill, Lucas untied the strings and tipped the magnificent diamond necklace into the palm of his hand.

  He held the jewels up to the morning light. They sparkled with all the colors of the rainbow—but were ultimately as lifeless as the river beyond.

  “A woman may one day be very glad to wear those,” Donovan commented in a completely neutral tone.

  Ice settled more firmly into Lucas’s bones. He’d always known Ambrosia would never marry a man who made his life so far from civilization, thus keeping intact his vow of never taking a wife. But, sometimes, he’d wondered about his wisdom. Now he’d never know.

  “No woman of mine, either wife or mistress, will ever have the chance.”

  He hurled the jewels far out beyond the cliff, where they glittered for a moment against the spray before disappearing amid the rocks.

  Chapter Two

  Jersey City, New Jersey, January 1873

  The small, grimy carriage lurched through another pothole, sending it swaying in the other direction. Two voices cursed from the box above, one in a distinctly Jersey accent and the other Bostonian flat. Both vocabularies held the casual, vicious certainty of men who knew violence all too well.

  A cold wind ruffled the carriage’s frayed curtains, bringing the memory of the previous night’s deep freeze and the promise of snow. It was far better than the stench of mackerel and sardines, which had infused every inch of the fishing schooner they’d been forced to spend the last few days on.

  Inside, Rachel Davis held her mother’s hand as tightly as if she were three years old, instead of twenty-three. From the opposite seat, her younger sister Mercy held both their hands, completing the circle. She was bitterly glad her father had died three years ago—from pneumonia after saving a child from drowning—without seeing them like this.

  She’d married Elias six years ago for friendship and to protect her friends, the other servants that she’d grown up with. She’d found more joy in her marriage than she’d ever hoped for. But she’d never expected a hell like this.

  “Remember,” Rachel whispered. Her heart seemed to be somewhere closer to her throat than her ribs. “When we reach the train station, no matter what happens, simply run and don’t look back. Do you understand? Don’t look back.”

  “But—” protested Mercy, as mulish as ever.

  “Hush,” begged their mother, her voice choked with tears from behind her veil. “They’ll hear you.”

  Mercy reluctantly lowered her voice to just above a snarl. “There must be another way!”

  Rachel closed her eyes, able to offer her sister little hope. She was grateful for the concealment of her own, very fashionable veil. She might have hated being forced by Albert Collins to accept a new wardrobe, as a sign of ending her mourning and therefore becoming open to his son’s advances. But its more fashionable—and wider—variety of hats did have some benefits.

  “We’ll be together,” insisted their mother.

  Rachel noted she didn’t say when. God willing it would be on this side of the grave. But, even if it were on the other side, she’d pay the price just to see her family finally safe from the Collins men.

  The hollow reassurance made quick-witted Mercy shift restlessly. It was obviously time to reiterate the plan. All of them knew how dangerous this would be. But Mercy had to be strong and fast for Mother or there was no hope at all.

  “Just remember, Mercy: All you must do is flee, as soon as you have the chance,” Rachel managed, despite her unhappy stomach. “After that, catch a ferry to Manhattan and buy passage on the Cunard packet we saw. Even if she’s going to Canada, she will still sail within the hour, on the next tide. I’ll follow you as quickly as I can.”

  Happier with concrete details, Mother listed their resources. “We’re lucky they’ve never searched all of us at once, so we’ll have cash for our fares.”

  Mercy sighed and accepted the bitter choice. “And we have a few days’ clothing in our carpetbags, plus the jewels Elias gave Mother.”

  Thank God Mercy had kept her voice down this time. If Collins’s thugs on the box had heard anything… Rachel shuddered, remembering past punishments meted out most severely to Mother and Mercy. Dear heavens, she’d thought Mother would never recover after that forced ice bath.

  The wall of noise from outside suddenly started to grow, anchored by the great rumble of iron wheels, clanging bells, and the high notes of steam whistles.

  Rachel closed her eyes in grateful prayer. She’d been right: The Collinses were taking them to a train station, not another boat. There’d be a chance for Mother and Mercy to escape this hell.

  “Correct, Mercy,” agreed their mother. “You know what to do. Now if we all do exactly what we agreed, everything will go very well.”

  She gave Rachel’s hand one last squeeze, just as the carriage came to a jolting stop, then released it.

  “God be with us,” she whispered.

  “Amen,” her two daughters breathed.

  The door was yanked open, admitting a burst of frigid air and a great, black shadow. “Mrs. Davis?”

  Rachel inclined her head and rose, adopting her haughtiest attitude. Her one satisfaction over the past year was that the Collins men had always seen her behave like a lady, as opposed to their frequently crude and outrageous demands. No matter what they might say of her family tree, her manners were as good as or better than theirs.

  She exited slowly, lingering on the step to survey the almost deserted station. At this very early hour in the frigid weather, there were almost no people around except Albert
and Maitland Collins, accompanied by two of their thugs. Every ruffian was a sailor from their shipping line—and utterly, blindly loyal to the Collins family. She’d have as much luck persuading Plymouth Rock to melt, as she would convincing one of those brutes into helping her or her family, as past events had painfully shown.

  At the end of a long platform, a single station attendant was busily seeing off a passenger train, almost invisible in its clouds of steam.

  Beyond a long ramp, an overhead sign proclaimed FERRIES with a gilt arrow pointing to MANHATTAN. Beyond that, she could glimpse a clerk taking tickets from the last men to board a ferry, while a sailor prepared to cast off.

  “Mrs. Davis.” Even with a half-century lifespan behind him, Albert Collins was a very dangerous man. He stood just above average height, built strongly enough to stand his ground against any mob or howling nor’ easter. He had piercing gray eyes that missed nothing, above highly cultivated muttonchop whiskers and between a gleaming bald scalp. He was superbly dressed, as befitted the head of one of Boston’s oldest shipping dynasties, even if his firm now owned less than a half-dozen ships.

  He’d always reminded Rachel of a water moccasin—dark, extremely poisonous, lurking in the swamp’s shadows until he could strike and quickly kill.

  Behind him and a half-head taller loomed his son, Maitland. Maitland was an undeniably handsome young man, something he knew all too well and expected to provide him with every advantage. In him, his father’s patrician features were sharpened to a knife edge, his father’s solidity turned into a cobra’s leanness. His eyes were a dark, almost charcoal gray, considering the world with a calculating charm—like a butcher considering cattle and their owners in the marketplace.

  Yet their family reputation had been polished and refined throughout the centuries that Boston had stood. As the last two Collins males, they were men of considerable standing—and Rachel’s feet always started edging for the door every time she saw them.