Deadlier Than the Pen Part 9

That annoyingly sardonic brow lifted. "Do you think I also arranged for the blizzard?"

She flushed but did not look away. "I would not put it past you! Sorcerers can conjure up all sorts of evil things."

"Trust me, Diana. I did my best to escape New York without being followed."

"You lied to me."

"Yes."

"About everything?"

His eyes darkened. "No. Not about everything."

Her breath caught. In confusion, Diana dropped her gaze to hands she held tightly clasped in her lap.

Jerusha coughed, then extended a hand past Diana. "Mister Bathory, I presume?" She all but purred the question.

"Miss Fildale. A pleasure." He bowed over her hand and kissed it, bringing his chiseled profile into Diana's line of vision.

"Oh, la! You give me all sorts of new thoughts on how to stay warm."

"Better than alcohol, I trust. Imbibing heavily tends to make people careless and that invites frostbite. It is not a pretty sight, nor is the resulting loss of fingers or toes."

"Charming," Diana muttered. She could guess the sort of tale Damon Bathory might create from this experience. Frozen corpses reanimated in the manner of Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley's Frankenstein monster. Horribly disfigured creatures who -- "Don't scowl so," Jerusha hissed, giving Diana a thump on the upper arm. "Your face will get stuck that way."

Bathory had turned his attention to the other occupants of the coach. Diana glanced over her shoulder at them, then wished she had not. Avid curiosity came back at her in palpable waves. They'd overheard her exchange with Bathory and drawn their own conclusions.

Seeing the salacious speculation in Lavinia's eyes, Diana wished she could crawl under the seat and hide. She settled for visualizing Horatio Foxe's face when she presented him with the sensational story he'd demanded.

Behind her, Bathory's mellifluous voice outlined their situation. "The most practical course is for everyone to gather in one place," he concluded, "and since the parlor car is the most comfortable, I suggest you all move there."

"How astonis.h.i.+ng," Jerusha murmured. "We're being invited to join the posh set."

"Kind of you, m'boy." Nathan Todd spoke for all the members of his troupe and none of them needed to be asked twice. Gathering their possessions, they exited the coach en ma.s.se.

They were greeted on the other side by a formidable matron. Diana recognized her as the pa.s.senger who'd looked so repulsed by the sight of Jerusha and Lavinia promenading on the platform at Grand Central Station.

"I am Mrs. Wainflete," she informed them.

"Pleased to meet you, ma'am!" Toddy grabbed her hand and shook it, causing her considerable consternation. "We're grateful indeed for your hospitality. And to prove it, we'll pay our pa.s.sage by entertaining you. You have at your disposal, madam, one of the finest theatrical companies in the world. We'll perform a play from our repertoire. Any one you select. What would cost you three dollars for an orchestra seat, you shall have today for free."

Mrs. Wainflete seemed somewhat mollified, although it soon became clear she'd not favored inviting them in. Like the others who'd bought first-cla.s.s tickets, she'd paid twenty-five dollars to ensure that she wouldn't be obliged to mingle with the riff-raff.

Jerusha pushed Diana in the direction of a buffet outfitted to serve coffee, tea, and light refreshments and pressed a sandwich into her hand. "Eat."

Mrs. Wainflete returned to her pedestal armchair, a recliner covered in red plush and furnished with white cloth arm- and headrest-covers, a foot cus.h.i.+on, and an individual heating coil connected to the small stove that sat in one corner.

The man who identified himself as Mrs. Wainflete's husband, reed thin with wispy hair and a mustache to match, stayed as far away from his formidable wife as he could get, staring out of one of the parlor car's large windows.

"Can't see a blasted thing," he complained, peering into the storm, "and I vow this handrail's turned to ice." Wincing, he lifted his bare fingers from the silver-plated surface.

"You'd best close the curtains," Bathory advised. "We should keep in whatever heat we can."

It did not surprise Diana when Wainflete obeyed. Damon Bathory had that effect on people.

"Surely the stove will keep us warm." Mrs. Wainflete's voice was sour as vinegar.

"We have no way of knowing how long we'll be stuck here."

"A few hours -- "

"More likely a few days."

"Surely you exaggerate, sir." Mrs. Wainflete appeared to take the possibility of being stranded for any length of time as a personal affront.

"I hope I do," Bathory said. "The trainmen, be they porters or brakemen or conductors, are trying to dig us out. If they are unsuccessful in their attempts, they will need every able-bodied man to take a turn at the shovels, and even that may not be enough."

Diana concentrated on sipping a cup of tea, but she was instantly aware of it when Bathory left the parlor car to collect more pa.s.sengers from another coach.

Jerusha snickered.

"Why do you laugh?"

"Because you relax as soon as he's gone. You bristle like two cats in each other's presence," she observed, still audibly amused. "And he is as fascinated with you as you are with him."

"That's hardly likely," Diana muttered. Besides, Bathory had a dark, secretive, dangerous side. Diana would not be fooled into forgetting that again, nor tricked into trusting him.

"He is a very pretty fellow, Diana Spaulding." Jerusha leaned closer. "If you want my advice, you should keep right on following him until he lets you catch him."

"The snowdrifts blocking the tracks appear to be a good twenty feet high," the conductor announced. "We will not be moving again for some time." The blue of his uniform was almost obscured by rime ice.

Fifty-two heads swiveled his way. Over Mrs. Wainflete's protests that there were not enough chairs in the parlor car for everyone, Bathory had insisted on a.s.sembling all the train's pa.s.sengers in one place. There were only nineteen recliners, but the rest of the pa.s.sengers did not seem to mind the thought of sitting, or even sleeping, on the floor. The parlor-car floor was covered by a thick carpet.

"Are there any plows on this side of the drifts?" Bathory asked the conductor.

"Keeps on snowing, we'll need a mighty big plow. One weighted with twenty-five tons of pig iron and as many as a dozen engines to push it. Not something we get much call for in southern Connecticut."

"What about bucking snow with the cowcatcher?"

Plainly, Bathory had traveled by train in the winter before. So had Todd's Touring Thespians, and Diana with them.

"We'd have to do more shoveling first. Need to back up the track about a mile to do it right, then pull the throttle wide open, and kerchug! Right into the wall of snow." The conductor's smile was grim. "I'll grant you that the impact can drive an engine two or three car lengths into a drift, but then the crew has to go out and clear the snow before we can do it again."

It sounded a long, dangerous process to Diana.

"How many men in your crew?" Bathory asked.

Mrs. Wainflete looked outraged. "Surely you don't mean to invite the help into first cla.s.s?"

"It makes sense to pool all our resources, especially food and heat. Bodies pressed together keep each other warm."

"I will not stand for it," she shrieked. "The railroad -- "

"The engineer and fireman will want to stay with the engine, and the brakemen and baggage men will be more comfortable in the caboose." The conductor was accustomed to soothing irate pa.s.sengers. "Doesn't take much to heat it, being small, and that's where they sleep on long hauls anyway."

Mrs. Wainflete settled down and nodded her approval. "I am glad to see some people know their place." She sent pointed looks at several of the coach-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers, hoping to encourage them to go back to the other cars.

No one obliged.

"We'll need cuddling to keep warm, even in here," Jerusha whispered.

"At least we're not out in the elements." The wooden sides and bullnose-shaped roof of the railroad car protected them from the snow and wind. But Jerusha was right. The longer the train sat motionless on the tracks, the colder it would get. The mahogany panels on the interior walls and the oak veneer of the ceiling added little in the way of insulation to a car constructed of pine. The ventilators, installed on the level of the overhead racks, let warm air escape right along with the fumes from the oil-burning center lamps.

They would indeed be forced to share each other's warmth if they remained here long. The thought of bundling with Damon Bathory made Diana feel a trifle giddy.

"The baggage car," she blurted.

"What's that, Diana?" Toddy asked.

"There must be more provisions and warm clothes in the baggage car. Someone should investigate."

She made the mistake of glancing at Damon Bathory when she spoke. He stared back, a speculative expression on his face.

From the relative protection of the platform between cars, Diana watched the snow fall. It showed no sign of abating. Vicious gusts threatened to topple her from her perch and made her borrowed shawl feel thin as gauze. Aside from the wind's howl, the only other sounds in this eerie white world were the loud pinging of the cooling engine and Damon Bathory's irritated voice.

"What are you doing out here? Do you want to freeze to death?"

Ignoring him, Diana continued to run her gaze over the countryside, searching for some sign of habitation. Not a single building broke the expanse of field and forest as far as she could see, and yet she knew that Connecticut was one of the better populated states. With visibility limited by blowing snow, she supposed there could be a whole town just beyond the next rise and she'd never know it. The most obvious sign of habitation -- smoke from chimneys and smokestacks -- would not be seen at any distance under these conditions. Fenceposts, even small buildings, had already been covered over by drifts of snow.

A heavy weight landed on her shoulders. She yelped and tried to push it off as images from the dream she'd had the night she'd first met Bathory came back to haunt her.

His hands clamped down over the long black cloak of his costume, holding it in place. "Don't be a fool, Diana."

She went still.

"Come back inside the baggage car," he said in a gruff voice. "It's safer there."

Whether there was a double meaning in his words or not, she saw the sense in them. She went in ahead of him.

Crowded with the props and set pieces belonging to Todd's Touring Thespians, the baggage car had so far yielded a few warm clothes to the search party, but little in the way of edibles. Just as Bathory and Diana entered at the front end, shaking show from their clothing, a young trainman came in from the caboose side.

"Mr. Brown, sir. Sam's been hurt. He's in the crummy."

The conductor, Elias Brown by name, followed him out. To Diana's surprise, Bathory went after them. Hatless as always, she noticed. If the cold affected him, he did not show it.

The others were ready to head back to the parlor car, carrying various bits of clothing and other potentially useful supplies. Diana hesitated. She rationalized her impulse by telling herself she was a journalist, that it was her job to find out what was happening and report on it. Going after Bathory this time would have nothing to do with Jerusha's advice. Diana was simply trying to earn a living.

When Diana pulled the cloak close about her over the shawl, she caught a whiff of wet wool and another, more elusive scent that clung to the fabric. His essence, she thought. Was that alone enough to ensorcell her?

She was almost glad of the cold blast of air that greeted her when she stepped out onto the platform between cars. It banished all thoughts save reaching shelter once again.

Just inside the doorway of the caboose, what trainmen called the "crummy," Diana stopped and stared. Sam, the injured man, his face gray with pain, sat upright in a straight-back chair. Bathory knelt at his side, concentrating so hard on peeling away the uniform coat and s.h.i.+rt beneath that he did not notice Diana's arrival.

"At best you've dislocated this shoulder," he said in a soothing voice. "At worst, you've broken your collarbone. What were you doing on top of the railroad car?"

"My job," Sam said. "Brakies ride on top. That's where the iron wheels are, the ones that work the brakes. When the engineer whistles for a stop, one brakie starts from the front and one from the rear."

"How do you keep your balance?"

"Running boards along the top of the cars. But we have to jump from one to the next. Thirty inches between." The injured man hissed in a breath when Bathory probed gently from neck to shoulder. "Always figured it'd be the coupling'd get me."

"You were lucky, then. You didn't lose a finger or a hand, you weren't crushed between cars, and when you fell, the snow softened your landing. But I am going to have to set this collarbone."

"You a doctor?"

The moment of hesitation before he answered alerted Diana to the evasion that followed. This was a pattern she'd encountered with him before. He never answered the question. He said only, "I've set fractures like this before. Will you trust me to do right by you?"

After a moment, the brakie nodded.

A short time later, using the padded lid of a tobacco tin to add pressure directly over the break, Bathory had set Sam's collarbone with a skill that spoke of a suspicious degree of practice. He wound a long bandage, crossed and recrossed at the point of the fracture, over and around the brakeman's shoulders in a figure eight to hold everything tight.

"Can you still breathe?" he asked.

Sam managed a grin. "Well enough. You do good work, mister. Better than some sawbones I've met."

Bathory helped him to one of the caboose's built-in bunks. Together with the personal possessions of the trainmen, and supplies for cooking and heating, the beds took up most of the room in the small, snug crummy.

"Rest," he ordered, and turned to go back to the parlor car. For the first time, he saw that Diana had been watching him.

"Will he be all right?" she asked.

"He'll do."

Before his advance, she retreated. Mr. Brown remained behind in the crummy. She walked faster, but Bathory caught up with her in the now-deserted baggage car.

"We need to talk."

"Not here."

"Where better? Fewer interruptions."

This close to him, her heart rate speeded up and she had to remind herself to breathe. She itched to move nearer even as what was left of her common sense warned her that she must get away, that it wasn't wise to be alone with him.

He smiled, but there was something menacing in his expression.

In sudden panic, Diana turned and ran.

Bathory was too quick for her. He circled her waist with one arm and a moment later they were face to face, her bosom pressed tightly against his chest, her arms pinned to her sides. His grip tightened until she could feel each of his fingers through the fabric of cloak, shawl, and Modjeska jacket.