Twin of Fire Read online

  “I should wear my knickerbockers, but that would give it away, wouldn’t it?”

  Blair followed Houston into the house, pleased by the entire arrangement. It wouldn’t be easy to impersonate Houston and that slow, lazy walk of hers, but Blair considered it a challenge and looked forward to it.

  Blair started having second thoughts about the whole affair when she felt Houston tightening the corset strings. Houston didn’t have any qualms about enduring a little pain for the sake of beauty, but Blair kept thinking about how her internal organs were being reorganized by the whalebone instrument of torture. But when she put the dress on and saw herself with the exaggerated hourglass figure like Houston’s, she wasn’t displeased at all.

  Houston watched her sister in the mirror. “Now you look like a woman.” She glanced down at the skirt and blouse she wore, feeling the lightly tied corset underneath. “And I feel as light as a feather.”

  They paused for a moment and studied each other in the mirror. “No one will know one of us from the other,” Houston said.

  “Not until we speak,” Blair answered, turning away.

  “You don’t have any problems. At least as me, you can get away with not speaking.”

  “And does that mean that I talk too much?” Blair shot back at her.

  “It means that if Blair were quiet, we’d never get out of the house because Mother’d call a doctor.”

  “Leander?” Blair asked, and they both laughed.

  Later, as they were both dressed and ready to go out for the evening, Blair supposedly to spend the evening with her friend, Tia Mankin, she got to see something that few people ever saw: she saw herself as others saw her.

  At first, she was so busy concentrating on trying to be Houston, imitating her walk, the way she entered a room, the way she looked at people as if from far away, that she didn’t see the way Houston was mimicking her.

  Mr. Gates walked into the room and said very politely that both young women looked lovely. Houston, as Blair, leaned her head back and used her superior height to look down at the man. “I am a doctor and being a doctor is more important than being pretty. I want more out of life than just being a wife and mother.”

  Blair opened her mouth to protest that she never sounded like that and that she’d never attack a man who hadn’t attacked first, but as she looked at the faces around her, she saw that no one thought what Houston had said was out of character.

  She almost felt sorry for Mr. Gates when the little man’s face blew up like a fish’s and his skin turned red. Before she knew what she was doing, she stepped between her sister and the angry man. “It’s such a nice night,” she said loudly. “Blair, why don’t you and I sit in the garden until Leander comes?”

  When Houston turned around, she had a look of anger and hostility on her face such as Blair had never seen before. Do I really look like that? she wondered. Do I really start most of the arguments with Mr. Gates?

  She wanted to ask Houston those questions, but before they could get outside, Leander arrived to pick them up.

  Blair stood back and watched Houston pretending to be her and, almost immediately, she wanted to protect him. He was courteous, smiling, polite and oh, so very good-looking. She’d never noticed before that Leander was enough to stop a heart or two. He was a serious-looking man with green eyes, a long thin nose and full lips. Black hair, overly long, scraped the collar of his coat. But what Blair was interested in wasn’t his surface good looks, but the expression in his eyes. It was as if those eyes hid secrets that he told no one.

  “Houston?” he asked, bringing her back to reality. “Are you all right?”

  “Of course,” she said briskly, trying to imitate her sister’s coolness.

  As Leander put his hands on her waist and lifted her into the carriage, she smiled at him and he smiled back, quickly, briefly, but it warmed her and she was glad to have this time with him.

  They were no more than in the carriage when Houston started on Leander.

  “How do you keep peritonitis from spreading?” she asked in a hostile voice that made Blair look at her in wonder. What was she so angry about? And where had she learned about peritonitis?

  “Sew both layers of the intestine together and pray,” Lee said quite sensibly, and correctly.

  “Have you heard of asepsis here in Chandler yet?”

  With her breath drawn in, Blair looked up at Lee to see how he’d take this question. Blair thought it was downright insulting, and she wouldn’t blame Lee if he gave Houston a piece of his mind. But Lee only glanced at Blair, winked quickly, and told Houston that the doctors in Chandler did indeed wash their hands before surgery.

  Blair couldn’t help smiling up at him, and she felt that the two of them were in this together. Houston kept on baiting Lee as Blair leaned back in the seat and watched the stars, not bothering to listen to her sister’s ranting.

  When at last they came to Tia’s house, she was very glad. And when Houston was gone and Blair and Lee were alone, she breathed a deep sigh.

  “It’s rather like the aftermath of a bad rainstorm,” she said, looking up at Lee and half dreading his comments about her other self.

  “She doesn’t mean anything. All doctors are like that when they leave medical school. You’re very aware of the responsibility of your profession.”

  “And it changes later?”

  “It does, but I’m not sure how to explain it. I guess you come to learn your limitations and aren’t so sure that you can save the world single-handedly.”

  Blair relaxed against the back of the carriage and thought how kind of him it was that he didn’t say anything bad about Houston’s attacking him. And he’d called her a doctor.

  It felt quite natural when she slipped her arm through his and didn’t move to the other side of the buggy now that her sister was gone. She didn’t notice the odd way that Leander looked at her, but Blair was quite pleased with the evening.

  Chapter 4

  Chandler, Colorado, was at the base of the Rocky Mountains with an altitude of seven thousand feet and, as a result, the air was always thin, clear and cool. The summers were pleasant during the day, and when the sun went down, the mountain air made shawls necessary.

  Blair sat next to Lee and took deep breaths, inhaling the crisp fragrance of the mountains. She hadn’t realized she’d missed it as much as she had.

  They had not driven half a mile when a man rode up in a flurry of dust, his horse panting, and yelled at Leander. “Westfield! Somebody needs help. There’s a woman down on River Street that just tried to kill herself.”

  Blair had never seen the man before, and she didn’t think she wanted to again. He looked like a cartoon of a gambler, with his coal black hair and his little mustache and, worse, the way he smirked as he stared at her.

  He took off his straight-brimmed hat and tipped it to her. “I could understand that maybe you’re too busy to come, Doc.”

  Blair glanced at Lee and saw that he was hesitating, and she knew that it as on her account. “I’ll go with you, Lee. Maybe I can be of some help.”

  The man, a gambler or not, said, “River Street ain’t no place for a lady. Maybe I should watch out for her while you go to the suicide.”

  That settled Lee as nothing else had. He cracked the whip over the horse’s head and yelled, “Hang on,” to Blair all in one breath.

  Blair slammed against the back of the carriage seat and grabbed the roof support as Lee went flying. She closed her eyes in terror twice, as Lee narrowly missed three other carriages. The people saw him coming and started getting out of his way long before he reached them. She heard several shouts of encouragement and guessed that the sight of Lee tearing through the streets was a familiar one.

  He halted the horse in the northeast corner of town, across the Tijeras River and between two railroad tracks—a place Blair had never seen or been curious about. In one motion, he tied the horse, grabbed his bag, leaped to the ground, and ordered Blair to remain in
the buggy.

  After a quick glance at the leering face of the gambler, she followed Lee into the house with the red lights on the outside. Lee went up the stairs as if he knew where he was going, but Blair couldn’t help looking around.

  Everything seemed to be red. The walls were red, the carpets were red, the furniture was upholstered in red with red fringe. And what wasn’t red was made of very dark wood.

  At the head of the stairs, she saw a tight group of women in various stages of undress and, just as she reached them, they began backing away from the door.

  “I need help, I told you,” Blair heard Lee shouting as she pushed her way through the crowd.

  Lee glanced up at her. “I told you to stay in the car.” On the bed in front of him was a pale, thin young woman, actually little more than a girl, writhing in pain that Blair guessed was from swallowing an alcohol-based disinfectant.

  “Carbolic?” Blair asked, and as she saw Lee removing a stomach pump from his bag, she knew what had to be done.

  Blair didn’t lose a moment going to work. With a voice of authority, she ordered three women, one wearing only her corset and a thin black wrapper, to hold the girl’s arms and legs, and another one to fetch towels. When a tall, well-dressed woman who looked as though she knew how to give orders came into the room, Blair sent her after two raincoats, and when the coats were there, Blair watched Lee until he had a free hand, then she slipped it into the sleeve of one oiled, waterproof garment. She then put the other raincoat on over her sister’s dress.

  Lee talked to the girl, soothing her even as he pushed the pump down her throat, and when the carbolic came up, it came with all the contents of her stomach, splattering everyone in the room.

  Gagging, sick, weak, covered in filth, the girl clung to Lee, and he held her, while Blair quietly organized the cleaning.

  “Nothing is that bad,” Lee said, holding the girl as she began to cry. “Here, I want you to drink this,” he said, giving her water and two tablets.

  He didn’t release her until she began to relax and at last fall asleep. Gently, he laid her on the bed and looked up at the tall woman Blair had sent after the raincoats. “Clean her up and send her to the Infirmary tomorrow. I want to talk to her.”

  The woman nodded silently, looking up at Lee with big, worshipful eyes. She turned to Blair. “I hope you appreciate this man, honey, ain’t many like him. He—.” The woman stopped at a look from Lee.

  “We have to go.” With surprise, he glanced down at the raincoat he wore and then looked across the patient’s bed at Blair.

  “I learned it from my doctor-sister,” she said in answer to his silent question and suddenly worried about how Lee would react to her help with the girl.

  But as Lee packed his instruments, took her arm and led her outside, he made no mention of her expertise. The people around them mumbled thanks and looked at both Lee and Blair with dull eyes, and Blair thought the young women were thinking that any one of them could have been the girl on that bed.

  “Do you come here often?” she asked Lee on the way down the stairs.

  “About once a week a doctor is here for one reason or another. I guess I’ve been here as often as any of them.”

  At the carriage, Lee paused in front of Blair and she was sure he’d say that he knew who she was. “I really appreciated your going with me on the case and that I didn’t have to leave you somewhere first. It meant more to me than you’ll know.”

  She gave a smile of relief. “You were very good with the woman, fast, as careful as possible.”

  With a slight smile, he touched the hair at her temple. “You’re sounding like Blair again, but whatever the reason, I thank you for the compliment.”

  When Blair was in medical school, she had had a teacher who warned them that the curse of young female doctors was that they tended to fall in love with whichever man was the best surgeon. The instructor had said that all a new female intern had to do was see a doctor remove an ovarian cyst that was difficult, and she’d soon be swooning over him.

  At this moment, Blair thought that Lee was one of the best-looking men she’d ever seen. He’d handled the technical side of the case quite well, but, more, his compassion was such as she’d never seen matched. When he moved toward her to kiss her, she realized that she wanted him to kiss her as herself, as Blair, rather than as Houston.

  She turned her face away.

  Leander dropped his hand from her face instantly, and the anger in his eyes was frightening. He turned away, every movement showing his anger.

  Blair felt a moment of panic. Right now, she was Houston and not Blair, and of course she would kiss the man she loved.

  Blair caught his arm. He stopped and looked at her, his eyes blazing with fury, and it took a great deal of courage not to step back. Boldly, she put her arms around his neck and touched her lips to his.

  He stood there as if he were made of stone, not moving, not responding to her advances.

  For a moment, it occurred to Blair that Dr. Leander Westfield was certainly a spoiled man if he reacted so severely to his fiancée’s refusing him a single kiss. As he continued to show no reaction, she thought of this as a challenge, like getting through the first year of medical school.

  She stood on tiptoe and began to show a little passion to this unyielding man.

  She wasn’t prepared for his reaction—nothing that had ever happened to her in her lifetime had prepared her for his reaction.

  He caught her head in his hand, twisted her head around and applied his mouth to hers with a passion that made her breath disappear. And Blair reacted in kind. She pressed her body against his and only clung harder when he pushed his knee between her legs and thrust his tongue into her mouth.

  “Excuse me,” came a voice with laughter in it, and it was several moments before Lee pulled away.

  Blair stood there with her eyes closed and was glad of the support of the carriage behind her or she probably would have fallen. She was vaguely aware that it was the dreadful gambler-man who was there, and that he was smirking at them even while he spoke to Lee, but she didn’t really care. Perhaps Houston’s reputation was ruined forever, but the last thing Blair was thinking about was her sister.

  “Ready?” she heard Lee saying softly in her ear when the man was gone. She could feel the warmth of his body so near hers.

  “For what?” she murmured, then opened her eyes.

  “Houston, we don’t have to go to the reception,” Lee said.

  Blair stood up straighter and remembered who she was and where she was and that she was with her sister’s finance. “Yes, of course we do,” she said shyly, not meeting his eyes and ignoring the fact that his hands lingered much too long on her waist as he helped her into the carriage.

  Once seated, she kept her eyes on the road ahead. So this is why Houston loves him, she thought. And to think that she’d worried that they were too cool to each other in private.

  She glanced at him once as he turned to her, and his eyes were alive, sparkling—and hungry.

  She gave him a weak smile and told herself to think of Alan. Alan. Alan!

  Blair managed to get herself under control somewhat, but, still, her senses were reeling, so that she wasn’t aware that Lee had driven them across the river and into the deep recesses of Fenton Park. Midnight Lane spread before them as Lee halted the horse next to the park bandstand and moved to help her out of the carriage.

  “Why are we stopping?”

  “I have the smell of carbolic in my nose and I thought the fresh air would help get rid of it.”

  He smiled at her as he lifted her from the carriage, and she had to turn away from him or she knew she’d be in his arms again. “You really were very good with the girl tonight.”

  “You said that,” he answered, releasing her as he took a cigar from his pocket and lit it. “Why did you go with me tonight? You never have before.”

  Blair caught her breath. She had to think fast. “I guess I was worried
about this afternoon. You seemed awfully angry,” she said, hoping it sounded plausible.

  He cocked his head to one side and looked at her through a cloud of smoke and moonlight. “You’ve never seemed to worry about that, either.”

  What in the world had she stepped into? Blair wondered. And why hadn’t Houston warned her about whatever Lee was talking about?

  “Of course I worry, Lee,” she said, turning away, her hand on the bandstand. “I always worry when you’re upset with me. I won’t let it happen again.”

  He was silent for so long that she turned to look at him. He was watching her with the same hungry eyes she’d seen before.

  “Lee, you’re making me blush. Shouldn’t we go to the reception?” Blast Houston! she thought. Once again she’d allowed her sister to talk her into doing something that was going to get her, Blair, into trouble. She hoped seeing that oversized house was worth this.

  Slowly, Lee’s hand reached out to touch her arm. She backed away and came up against the wooden bandstand.

  He threw his cigar down and advanced a step toward her.

  Blair gave him a little smile, grabbed her skirts and ran up the stairs to the center of the bandstand. “We used to have the loveliest concerts here,” she said, backing up, as she watched him moving toward her. “I remember wearing pink and white and…”

  Her voice trailed off as he stood before her and she could back no further. As she looked up at him, feeling the warmth of his body near hers, he held out his arms to her and she went to him.

  There was no music except the sounds of the night, but Blair was sure she heard violins as Lee waltzed her about the bandstand. Closing her eyes, her skirts over her arm, she followed him as if in a trance, giving no thought to any moment but this one. And when he pulled her close and kept waltzing, his legs pressed against her own, she gave herself over to feelings such as she’d never experienced before.

  She wasn’t aware of time passing as he held her, nor did she remember that she was supposed to be her sister or that this man who held her so ultimately was a stranger. She was only aware of the present, there was no past, no future.