The Lost Baroness Read online

  Footsteps, then the sound of a quickly indrawn breath. Turning his head, Buff saw Siri standing just inside the door, her eyes enormous, her hands clenched so tightly around the handle of an umbrella that her fingers were white. Siri? Her children? What the hell is going on?

  Setting his suspicion that he was being had aside, he stood. He pried the umbrella handle from her clutching fingers and removed the dripping coat from her shoulders. It was like undressing a mannequin. Or a child. When he realized she was staring at Li Ching with the stupefaction of a mouse mesmerized by a rattler, he hid a smile. Of course. The Bogeyman.

  He hung the coat on a hook on the wall, then guided her to his chair. Her body was so tightly held it almost thrummed. For a moment he wondered if her knees would bend before she folded clumsily.

  She did not relax. Her gaze was fixed on Li Ching. Buff had the feeling she didn't even realize he was there.

  "What the hell?" he demanded, looking across the table to the slightly smiling Celestial.

  "One moment," Li Ching spoke to the young man who had brought Siri. After a short exchange, he accepted a packet of papers, tied with a scrap of blue cloth. The young man retreated, closing the door quietly.

  One hand on the packet, the other stroking his chin, Li Ching looked across the table at Siri. "I regret, Mrs. Trogen, I have not been able to discover the fate of your children. My men have searched as far south as Tillamook and upriver to Portland. They found no trace of a woman traveling with children. I believe you received my message that she was seen boarding her brother's fishing boat on the day your children disappeared. She was alone then."

  Buff looked over at Siri. Tears were rolling down her cheeks and her fingers were twisting in her lap.

  "The boat was docked at Chinook the next morning, although it was not seen to land there. Neither was she seen there--or anywhere--since then." Li Ching's moue of disgust spoke volumes.

  Were heads rolling because he was being forced to admit an intelligence failure? Li Ching did not impress Buff as one to accept less than perfection. "You don't know where the boat went between times?"

  "Alas, no. In the ordinary course of matters, my people would hear of any unusual occurrences. To my great disappointment, this time we have failed."

  Siri licked her lips with a tongue dry as dust. "Nothing? You've heard nothing?" Her fear of Li Ching had disappeared the instant he claimed responsibility for the scant information she had received via Bao and Chu.

  The face of the man she had believed a djävul now seemed sympathetic, fatherly. He appeared genuinely distressed that he had no more information for her.

  Someone took her hand. She looked down. Saw strong fingers wrapped around her own chapped ones. She looked up the arm, clad in wool, saw a face that for a moment seemed a stranger's. Then she recognized him. "Mr. Lachlan! Varför är du här? What are you...?"

  "Apparently Li Ching thinks I'm the man to help you find your children," he said, sounding as if it was the last thing he wanted to do.

  "Oh, but--"

  "Mr. Lachlan is seeking information. You are in need of assistance. I believe you might find your interests are not as far apart as you thought," Li Ching said. He stood and held out a packet of papers to Mr. Lachlan. "Here are the only records we could discover. When you have perused them, I trust you will return them to the proper authorities.

  "And now, there is other business I must attend to. Please convey my best wishes to your honored aunt and uncle." He bowed before slipping through the door behind his chair.

  "Let's go." Mr. Lachlan half lifted her from the chair.

  Before she could resist, he was holding her coat for her. Siri shivered as she slid her arms into the damp sleeves. "Wait. Tell me--"

  "Not here." He held the door, motioned her to proceed him through it. "Let's find a place where we can talk in private."

  When they emerged into the street, the wind knifed through Siri's damp coat She shivered.

  "Hell! You're going to freeze in those wet clothes. Can you hold out 'til we get to the hotel?" He took her arm and almost pulled her up the street.

  "Please!" She dug in her heels. "We cannot talk at the hotel. I am not allowed to sit in the parlor, and you cannot...there is no private place we can be." She would not dare take him to the drying room. If Mrs. Welkins ever heard of it, Siri would have no more work.

  "We'll go to the Occident, then," he said, pulling again at her arm, which he held in an unbreakable grip.

  "Nej, nej! I cannot go there!" She could only imagine the reception she would receive at Astoria's elegant hotel, when the haughty headwaiter saw her gown. It was a shabby gray faille she had cut down from one of Martine's after Rosel's birth. Her own clothing had no longer fit her through the bosom, and her mother-in-law had reluctantly provided some cast-offs for the sake of decency.

  "There is a café," she told him, "near the docks. They have good food, but it is not elegant like the Occident."

  "I don't give a damn about elegant," he said impatiently. "I'm hungry."

  The café served plain food, fit for loggers and fishermen. It was smoky and dark and, in the middle of the afternoon, nearly empty. Mr. Lachlan seated her at a table near the back, well away from the few other diners.

  When they had given their orders and received steaming mugs of coffee, he sat back and looked at her across the table. "Well?" he said. His voice was hard, as if he suspected her of...of what?

  She cradled the mug between her hands, absorbing its heat. "I...I do not know what you ask." He had seemed to be so kind, so gentlemanly, before. Now he was stern, a little fierce. And even more handsome, with his jaw set just so.

  "What did Li Ching mean, we may have more common interests than we thought?"

  Siri had paid little attention once she heard the Chinese had been unable to trace Martine. "I do not know," she repeated. "You have just arrived. How could we have common interests?"

  "Beats me." Mr. Lachlan sipped his coffee, never taking his piercing gaze from her face. After a few moments, he patted the front of his wool jacket. He pulled forth the small packet Li Ching had given him. "Let's see if the answer is in here."

  The blue fabric scrap that tied the papers resisted his tugs, so he cut it with a small knife that appeared as if by magic from under his cuff. He set knife and cloth aside and unfolded the papers. One by one, he smoothed the first three, glancing quickly over each. At the fourth, he paused, read carefully. "Here it is. The Magli Arnesdotter. Master--"

  "Oh! That is--" She stopped when he held up a hand.

  "Master, Arne Hansen. Lost at sea, June, 1865. All hands."

  Siri bit her lip. "Min far," she whispered.

  "Your father? Your father was the fisherman who picked up some of the survivors of the Dancing Goddess?" He leaned toward her as if about to come across the table and shake her. "I'll be... Do you know how many? Were they all women?"

  Siri shrank back in her chair, feeling as if he was about to come across the table and pull the answers from her by brute strength. "I don't know. The ship...I have heard the name. That is all." A sudden shaft of pain went through her head, from nape to temple. "Oh! I do not know. My father did not always tell us of his adventures."

  The waiter came then, with their dinners. Siri was grateful for the interruption, because Mr. Lachlan leaned back and let the food be set before them.

  * * *

  Three tables over, Jaeger smiled to himself. So. The homely little maid from the hotel had knowledge of the shipwreck Lachlan was so interested in. Could she be brought to remember the names of the survivors her father had picked up? Given proper incentive, she might.

  Was there a vacant room in the Pacific Western Hotel? He would have to inquire. Perhaps he could charm her, glean any useful information from her in the aftermath of sex. Women were prone to reveal all their secrets when senseless with repletion.

  And if that approach did not yield results, there were always other means.

  Chapter Eight


  Buff sopped the last of the gravy up with a chunk of sourdough bread. Sourdough? He'd eaten most of the thick slice before its distinctive taste snared his attention. Of all the things he'd been homesick for, this had been one of the strongest yearnings. For a moment he forgot his quest, his impatience for answers. After so many years of European cuisine, haute and ordinaire, the taste of bread like his ma made told him he'd come home.

  He came to a decision. "Eat your stew," he told her, hating to see the thick mixture of elk meat, onions and parsnips go to waste.

  She looked up. "I am not hungry."

  "Eat anyhow. You look like the next strong wind would blow you away. I won't work with a woman who's apt to faint from hunger." He wasn't sure he wanted to work with her at all. Except that she might have one of the missing pieces to his puzzle.

  Her eyes grew round. "You will help me? You will find mina barn?"

  "I'll do what I can. If you'll do your best to remember what your pa said about the Dancing Goddess."

  "Ja. I will try. Perhaps min mor...I will write to her."

  "Your mother's still alive? Where is she?"

  "She went to Monterey after... to stay with her sister. She was not happy here. Too much rain." Siri stirred her stew, as if looking for something edible. At last she spooned up a small chunk of meat. The swallowing of it looked almost painful, even though she had chewed it to death.

  She looked up, saw him watching her. "I am sorry," she said. "The food...sometimes it sticks in my throat."

  "Worry will do that to a body," he said. His ma had always lost her appetite when she fretted. "Just keep trying." He reminded himself he had no reason to believe she'd been party to Li Ching's scheme. The wily Celestial was certainly capable of thinking it up all by himself, as a means of getting rid of two pests at the same time.

  She nodded, spooned up a lump of parsnip. This time she seemed to find it easier to swallow. "It is good," she said, with a pathetic attempt at a smile.

  Buff contained his impatience until she had eaten more than half of her stew and most of her bread. "Okay," he said when she put her spoon down and shook her head in defeat. "Let's talk about what we're going to do to find your children."

  "What can we do? I have asked everyone I know. You heard Li Ching--his people have been able to discover nothing. No one saw Martine with them. No one knows where she went."

  "Tell me everything. Start the day they disappeared." Before she could say anything, he changed his mind. "No. Tell me about how you lived, where you lived. Why could your mother-in-law just take your children without you knowing?"

  "Valter was a good man, but he liked the cards. Sometimes he bet more than he should. So we always lived with her. After Rolf--my son--was born, we had to pay rent. Before I had cleaned and other chores. Rolf was...sjuklig?"

  "Sickly? Not well? Not healthy?"

  "Ah, ja. He was sickly, so I could not work as much. Martine did not like that. She said I was lazy. And she did not like it that I taught Rosel English." A fleeting grimace twisted her face. "We did not speak English in Martine's house. Only svensk.

  "I did not want to live with her, but Valter said we must. She had room for all."

  "She is wealthy?"

  "Ja. Her husband traded along the coast. When he died, she sold his ship and had a grand house built upriver, at Daws' Landing. She rented rooms to seafaring men and others who were there only sometimes. Never fishermen--she believed they had no god uppfostran...their manners were not good."

  A quick glance upwards and Buff was sure he'd seen a fleeting smile. "Valter was a gillnetter. She did not approve, but he was happy in his work."

  "So you always lived with her?" How had the old woman been able to steal the kids, then? Something was fishy here. Or had he been mistaken in his impression of Siri? Was she less naïve and unsophisticated than she acted?

  "Only until Valter...until..." She bit her lip. "There was a big storm. The salmon were running. So many, until the river seemed to boil with their passage. Only a few gillnetters went out that day. The foolish, the hungry." Her shrug was eloquent.

  "Afterward, Martine said I must find a job. She would support me no more."

  What an old witch! "So you took the children and left?"

  "Ah, nej. I could find no work that would pay enough that I could afford a place for us to live." A pause, and her lips thinned, her hands fisted on the tabletop. "She said she would keep the children until I could get my feet...get my feet together?"

  "Get on your feet?" he offered.

  "Ja, get on my feet. I only saw mina barn on my day off, and then for so short a time. An hour, perhaps two. The walk...it was so far, through the woods. And the days so short in winter..." A tear spilled down her cheek. Impatiently she wiped it away. "Little Rolf, he was forgetting I was his mor.

  "One day when I went to see them, carrying the small gifts I had for them to open Christmas morning, they were--" Her voice broke and she covered her mouth. After a moment, she said, "They were gone. The house was locked. I thought...at first I thought Martine had taken them to Astoria to visit me, but had forgotten to tell me. I went to Mr. Daws who lives nearby, and he told me they had not been there for five days. Martine had left him a note saying that she was moving away and would write to him when she was settled in her new place. But she did not say where the place was, and she has never written. It is nineteen days now, and I do not know where--"

  She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. Again her lips firmed. "Enough! I waste time weeping." Leaning forward, she looked him in the eye. "Why did Li Ching say we could help one another? What must I do so you will help me?"

  Buff wondered what outrageous tasks she would undertake to regain her children. For a moment he was tempted to forget his quest and tell her if she would fulfill the fantasies he'd had of her, he would go to the ends of the earth on her behalf.

  For a moment.

  "Write to your mother, see what she remembers. In the meantime, I'll keep my ears open. Something may turn up."

  "But you will not wait, will you? Please!" She reached across the table and clutched his wrist. "You will begin your search now?"

  Laying his hand over hers, Buff squeezed gently. Her fingers slowly loosened, until he could believe the blood might flow to his hand again. "I'll start. Tomorrow I'm heading upriver. There's a fellow up at Westport..." Never mind. She doesn't need to know what sort of people I'm talking to. But it's true that Pete, up in Westport, might have heard something about her kids. According to Longstreet, he has interests all along the rivers. The sort of interests that would see a possible profit in information about stolen children.

  After a moment he said, "I'm looking for another missing child, which is one reason why I said I'd help you. Maybe I can make it sound like the two cases are related."

  "Another? Other children have disappeared?"

  Hearing the pain in her voice, Buff wished he'd kept his mouth shut. "It was a long time ago...."

  For the second time that day, he told of the girl child he sought, of the strong possibility she had been on the Dancing Goddess.

  "So young a child? Why was she alone? Why were her parents not with her?"

  "Because she was cargo, Siri. She was to be sold, like any commodity. To the highest bidder."

  At first she didn't understand him. When his words at last made sense, her jaw dropped. "Ohyggligt! Vad syndig! A child! So terrible." Again tears spilled across her cheek, leaving wet trails on skin gone pasty white. "How her parents must have grieved! I will help you. Just tell me what you want me to do." She reached across the table again. This time she clasped his right hand in both of hers.

  An arrow of heat stabbed through Buff's gut, leaving him dry-mouthed and weak. Then he realized she had not offered herself in payment for his help.

  Buff was no celibate. He had bedded some of Europe's infamous beauties, had spent most of a night in a Hong Kong bordello known worldwide for the charm and allure of its courtesans
. He liked women, all ages, shapes, sizes. He enjoyed the feel of them, the smell of them, the taste of them. Women thought differently than men, and he liked that, too. Some women were his friends, some had been his lovers. A very few were both.

  Siri was like no woman he'd known. He became aware that her hands, work-roughened and strong, were still holding one of his. In that clasp he sensed more than the first stirrings of friendship. More than the simple pleasures of sex.

  He and Siri were bound together, for some as yet unknowable purpose.

  "What's your other name?" he demanded, determined to break the spell. "Siri what?"

  "Hansen...no Trogen. My name is Sigrid Hansen Trogen. Siri is a... a smeknamn... I do not know how--"

  "A nickname. A pet name, used by your friends and family."

  "Ja, but not just my family. Everyone knows me as Siri. Sigrid is so fine, so formal. I am a plain woman, not fancy."

  He looked past the lines of exhaustion, past the weight of worry and fear for her children. Her hair was the color of moonlight, her eyes as blue as the river that flowed deep and clear past Cherry Vale. The hollows in her cheeks showed the underlying bone structure. She would be a beautiful old woman, would be lovely now if she had a bit more flesh on her bones.

  Ice blue satin and silver lace. That's what she should wear.

  Buff vowed he'd feed her every chance he got, until she filled out as she was meant to be.

  And wondered why he cared.

  Shoving that thought aside, he disengaged his hand. "Looks like the wind's died down. Let's walk awhile. We're mostly dry." If he wasn't looking into eyes that invited him to dive in and never come up, maybe his thoughts could be kept where they ought to be.

  Obediently she rose. From the astonished look she gave him when he went to help her with her coat, he decided her mother-in-law might be a rich woman, but she hadn't taught her son any manners. Siri acted like no man had ever treated her with common courtesy.

  Her shy smile, as he settled the coat on her shoulders, warmed his heart.

  And other, less mentionable parts, too.

  * * *