Searching for Home (Spies of Chicago Book 1) (12 page)

Ellen spun to face her aunt. “We’re leaving? But where is James? He wasn’t at breakfast. Shouldn’t we wait for him to return?”

“You concern yourself far too much with that banker’s business.” Aunt Louisa extended a hand to Carter. “Mr. Hurst will attest to the fact that young men should be allowed time alone to do whatever they wish.”

“Of course, Mrs. Danby, boys must be boys.” He inclined his head and bid his farewell.

Travel to the shopping district took longer than expected. The carriage wheels sank in the deep mud that slathered the streets. Aunt Louisa harrumphed.

Ellen toyed with the strap of her reticule. “We should have taken a cable car.”

“I think not. A cable car? I’d never.” Aunt yanked her gloves higher up her arms.

“But I read that Chicago boasts the largest cable car system in the world. Don’t you think that’s exciting? Why not make use of it?”

Aunt Louis
tisked
. “My dear girl. Your pride in Chicago’s accomplishments is admirable, but your desire for common transport is not. My husband is not who he is because he enjoys middle-class finery. Not everyone can afford to keep a carriage and team in town. It would simply disgrace him if we used the cable car.”

“But I am middle class, Aunt.”

Reaching across the space of the bench, Aunt Louisa patted Ellen’s hand in an uncharacteristic show of affection. “Sadly, yes you are, but you will not always be. The young Hurst seems taken with you, and he wants to escort you to the opera. That’s promising. Continue to bat your eyes at that one, dear.”

James’s caution echoed in her head. “But I don’t know him. Perhaps I should slow down.”

“Slow down? Goodness, no. Absolutely not.” Aunt Louis jiggled her head back and forth. “Anything but that. You have his attention, now keep it and secure him.”

“Do you
know
him?”

“He’s the firstborn to a wealthy man. That’s all you need to know about him.”

“Perhaps … I think I want more than that. I want love.”

“Hush on that account.”

“But don’t you love Uncle Garrett?”

“Love?” Aunt Louisa looked out the window. “He provides a lavish life for me. I’ve never been in want. I have no complaints.” She shifted in her seat. “Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not blind to his intimacies with other women. But that’s the way these things are. And when all is said and done, his fortune is left to me in the will, not them.”

Ellen gasped. “Uncle Garrett is an adulterer?” She would never be able to look at her joking uncle the same ever again.

“That’s such a harsh word, my dear.” Aunt Louisa hugged herself and turned to face the window, but not before Ellen caught sight of the tears gathering in her eyes. “It’s not so bad. You’ll see when you’re married.”

But Ellen didn’t like the idea of sharing a husband. Would Carter want to stay close to other women? What about James with Prissy? After he wed, would he still seek out the company of the gypsy-eyed beauty? Ellen shivered.

Perhaps returning home to a stepfather who didn’t want her would be better than a husband who vowed to love her and didn’t.

The carriage wobbled to a stop and the uniformed footman opened the door. Aunt Louisa dabbed at her eye. “The dust around here,” she mumbled.

But how could there be dust when everything lay covered in inches of mud?

Ellen climbed out and moved to follow her aunt into the store when a man across the street caught her eye. The garish plaid pants, oversized coat, and bowler hat couldn’t hide James’s lazy stride. She knew that lanky gait better than her own.

Peeking over her shoulder, Ellen watched her aunt disappear behind racks of fabric. Ellen twisted her purse string in her hand as James continued away from her.

Last night, Lewis told her to follow James’s instructions. James told her to stay with Aunt Louisa. But what could James be up to? Not knowing made a fire burn in her chest.

Ellen balled her fists.

The two of them could shove their advice in their pipes and smoke it.

Men shouldn’t be allowed to abandoned women so easily.

She reached for the footman. “Please tell my aunt I can’t continue on with her. Let her know James Kent will bring me home.”

The footman stammered as she rushed forward against the flow of pedestrians. James turned the corner, and Ellen darted down an alley. She could cut him off if she ran fast enough.

Chicago, April 29, 1886

“Psst. Pssst!”

James stopped in his tracks. A man following at close proximity slammed into him, making James drop his suitcase. The letters he’d painted across the front—
Dr. Swan’s Miracle Elixir—
faced the world.
Utter frustration.
Not that the lurid plaid pants and drummer get-up Hugh forced him to don didn’t already announce the inane plot of this mission.

“Psst!”

A fraction of a moment later, Ellen leapt out of the shadowed ally and looped her arm through his. “Did you hear me pssting to you?”

Suppressing his desire to shake her, James stooped to pick up the suitcase. “I daresay, they heard you
pssting
all the way in Pennsylvania.” He resumed walking. “Confounded Ellen. How did you recognize me?”

She tapped the peddler permit badge that glinted on the right pocket of his overcoat. For her to see him in such an outfit! James grumbled as he switched the suitcase to his other hand, accommodating Ellen.

“Your drummer getup is ostentatious.” She giggled. “Do your spiel for me. Will your elixir cure a cough or clear my complexion or will it make my crops grow to an exceptional height?”

He spoke through clenched teeth. “It’s
supposed
to be a disguise.”

“You’ve got Madagascar oil dripping down your neck.”

And it smelled like rotten eggs, too. Nice of her not to mention that bit. He pulled off the shiny bowler hat and wiped the back of his neck with his sleeve.

James glanced up Throop Street and expelled a long breath of pent-up air. The venue for the day’s espionage loomed before him. A crowd swarmed into West Side Park, the long bathtub-shaped piece of land where the Chicago White Stockings played baseball. In the off-season, the park’s usage ranged from circus attractions to high-class society functions.

James grabbed Ellen by the elbow and led her near the edge of a butcher shop window, out of the way of pedestrian traffic. He made sure to face her away from the skinned meat hanging in plain view. “Where did you come from? I don’t have time to bring you home and accomplish what I need to.”

“Of course not. That’s why I’m coming with you.” Lips he had kissed pouted.

Had that only been last night? Hours could change things—but not that. He cursed his weakness when it came to her.

“You’re certainly not coming with me.” He shook his head. “This isn’t a game, it’s dangerous. Have you so quickly forgotten your forced swimming expedition last night?”

Shielding her eyes with her hand, she looked at him with those large blue eyes. “Is Lewis involved in all this?” Her eyelashes lowered.

In an effort to stall, he yanked out his watch. She couldn’t know. Could she? Ellen wouldn’t be mixed up with anarchists. If she were, they wouldn’t have pushed her into the lake.

“Why do you say that?”

She jabbed a finger into his ribs. “Simple yes or no answers, please, and remember, I know you well enough to know when you’re lying.”

James set down his suitcase to rub his jaw. “Yes. Lewis is a part of this. And that’s the only reason I agreed to go on assignments. But I’m not about to endanger you in the process.”

“He’s here in town.” It came out more blurt than statement. She slapped a hand over her mouth.

James leaned closer to read her face. “You’ve seen him?”

Her cheeks flushed. “Where are you off to?”

He didn’t have time to argue with her. Returning his watch to his pocket, he glanced ahead to the crowd again. “Buffalo Bill is having an early screening of his Wild West show at West Side Park. Some of the anarchists are rumored to be there, so I need to go and listen.”

“Excellent. Two pairs of ears will hear more.” She looped her arm through his again and tugged until they reached the street.

Would she never consider her own safety?

But his conscience couldn’t stand leaving her alone in the city either.

He gripped the suitcase handle harder. “Since you’re not in disguise, everyone will know who you are.” He tried to unwind from her grasp. “You shouldn’t hold my arm. You’ll get a fine reputation stepping out with a drummer.”

Her clutch tightened. “I’m not stepping out with a drummer. I’m stepping out with
you
.”

“Are you? Because I could prove just as dangerous.” Visions of black-cloaked spies ran through his mind. Finding a break in traffic, he ushered her across the mud-caked street.

She gave him a jab with her elbow. “I thought you said you weren’t spying anymore?”

James glanced at her, shaking his head. “I never said that.”

“Yes, you did.” She narrowed her eyes.

He stopped. “When?”

Ellen squeezed his arm. “Last night.”

“No, I said
we
wouldn’t be spying—meaning you.”

Humanity packed into the arena. The smell of so many unperfumed bodies made Ellen hold her breath. Keeping an ear open for spies became a difficult task at the Wild West show. Even harder because James refused to tell her what she should listen for.

Ellen downright forgot about snooping when the horn sounded and a troop of bare-chested Indians paraded past on horses smeared with war paint. A heckling pack of lassoing cowboys and decorated military men hoisting guns thundered after them.

After that, the bearded Buffalo Bill Cody tossed his hands in the air. “In 1872, I made my stage debut here in Chicago. I’m happy to be back and introduce you to the delights and adventures of the West. You never know, I might even add something special for my favorite city.”

Applause and a smattering of hollers punctuated his speech.

Sharpshooters Annie Oakley and Lillian Smith, or as Cody called her—California Girl—took the stage. Ellen leaned forward. A machine spit out clay pigeons. Annie and California Girl took aim, striking the plate thirty times in fifteen seconds. Ellen’s nails bit harder into the edge of the wooden bench with each shot.

Could the people James faced be that good with a gun? The hairs rose on Ellen’s arms. He was right, this wasn’t a game. James was a banker—pressed suits and shined shoes were his specialties, not guns and fighting.

James touched her hand. “I’m going to sneak around back and see if I can find anything suspicious. Please—for the love of all things good—stay put. If someone approaches you, scream like a banshee.”

What if the bad guys toted long rifles like Buffalo Bill’s showmen? James might not have exaggerated the danger. She dug her nails into his arm when he moved to leave. “Do you have a gun on you?”

Someone hollered for James to sit down.

“I’ll be fine,” he whispered.

“When will you be back?”

He rolled his eyes. “Fifteen minutes. I’ll keep an eye on you. Don’t talk to anyone and don’t move.”

The pounding hooves of a horserace on the field captured her attention as James worked his way down the aisle of seated people.

Ellen glanced at the doorway James had disappeared through. Had fifteen minutes passed? What if he didn’t return? She bit her lip.

She never promised to stay put.

James peeled off the restraining overcoat and discarded it near the end of the row. With fast steps, he pressed close to the canvas tent wall near where performers queued. He held his breath as he walked past Cody’s men. However, with so many participating in the show, no one noticed his presence.

James continued to the back lot where the sideshows preformed. He scanned the groups of people. What did an anarchist look like? Would they be dressed in shabby rags, huddled together in conversation? He had no idea how to act if he saw Lewis. He’d warn him for certain. Or maybe he’d gag Lewis and drag him back to Wheaton. He couldn’t allow his friend to become more tangled in this business than he already was.

With that resolve, James pressed onward, his ear tilted to home in on conversations.

“Step right up and watch a feat of strength!” A robed man hollered from the doorway of a flapping tent. James ducked inside. Dank warmth filled the small dark space as people pushed to get a better view of the little stage.

“Where will the meeting be tonight?” A hoarse voice whispered somewhere behind James. He pivoted. Eyes still on the performing troop, his body leaned to hear the low tones of the three men grouped together.

“The Rat Palace.”

“Will Downing make his report?”

Downing! Imagine his luck. James wanted to leap into the air. If he had a cane like Hugh, he would have grabbed the handle extra hard to celebrate the moment.

“Yes. Nine o’clock then.”

He’d heard enough and had left Ellen alone too long. He exited the tent and jogged back to the main arena. Ellen had used her blessed brain and stayed put. He sighed, and a moderate amount of tension dripped from his shoulders. Now he’d haul her home and make her stay there.

As James weaved down the seated portion of onlookers, an announcer clad in a colorful get-up announced that this would be the last event of the day.

When James took his seat, Ellen latched onto his hand.

A family of settlers took the stage and pretended to work around their cabin. The now familiar whoop of Indians filled the air and a band of long-haired men with skin the color of diluted tea charged at the family.

The crack of a rifle silenced the crowd. Cody stormed in on a midnight-black stallion, an entourage of cowboys following on his heels. A fight erupted as Cody’s men defended the family and mimicked skinning the Indians.

Ellen turned and buried her head into James’s shoulder.

He tugged her closer. “Let’s get out of here, half-pint.”

Crouched in the hallway, Ellen pressed her ear to the door. Behind it, James and an elegant Englishman spoke in hushed voices. She tried to recall meeting the fierce-faced man but she would have remembered those piercing blue eyes. Whatever dealings James had with him, there was no doubt they’d be linked to Lewis and the spies.