Mercury's Rise (Silver Rush 04) by Ann Parker Read Free Book Online Page B

stopped outside a room, extracted a key from her sleeve, and set a finger to her lips. “The nanny sleeps in the same room as William. I’ll go in first, and wake her, so she doesn’t startle.”
    Inez laced her hands together, willing the trembling to stop. William was just beyond the door. After all the waiting, the moment felt unreal.
    Harmony opened the door, leaving it ajar, and moved inside. Moonlight from the far window cast deep shadows about the large and airy room. She leaned over a cot by the window and rocked the shoulder of the person sleeping there. A figure sat up, long hair, nightcap askew. Murmurs back and forth. Harmony turned and beckoned at Inez.
    Inez slipped inside and walked toward the bed.
    The nanny, Inez saw, was almost a child herself. Fifteen, she guessed, at the most.
    Harmony pointed to one side of the room. Inez moved to the small bed and gazed, at last, upon her son.
    For a horrible moment, it was as if she gazed upon an unknown child. When last she’d seen him, he had been an infant of eight months. Now, a few months shy of two years old, he lay on his back, arms thrown out, pudgy hands slightly curled. The face was at the same time familiar and not. Sorrow, guilt pulled at her, making it hard to breathe.
    More than that, what struck her to her heart was the well-worn calico stuffed dog tucked under the blanket beside him. Faded, repaired with black thread, with only one shoe-button eye, it was the same dog Inez had placed in his arms the previous August. The small comfort, the one link to his life in Leadville that she had bestowed on him when she’d kissed him good-bye a year ago.
    I have missed so much. First step. First word. Moments that photographs and letters cannot bring fully to life. Will he remember? Will he remember me?
    She had not intended to touch him, but she couldn’t stop herself. She laid an open hand lightly, as if cupping a fluffy dandelion, atop his head. His soft brown hair tickled, and she could feel his warmth against her palm. William stirred slightly, fingers of one hand clenching and relaxing. Inez heard the nanny hiss with an intake of breath behind her.
    Inez tore herself away and returned to the nanny’s bedside.
    Harmony put an arm around Inez’s waist. “You’ll see him more tomorrow,” she whispered. “When he’s awake, you’ll see what a wonderful, bright child he has become. Your son.”
    Inez nodded, unable to speak past the lump in her throat.
    The sisters turned to the door, but not before Inez caught the nanny’s expression. Inez would have expected to read annoyance in her features—annoyance at nearly awakening William, annoyance at disturbing her sleep.
    But she did not expect the naked emotion, painted by moonlight with such clear intensity upon the nanny’s face.
    Hate.

Chapter Seven
    Inez woke to the voice of the rushing creek and morning light fighting its way through the muslin curtains. She turned on her side, facing the window.
    Maybe, she thought, she should have arranged to meet Harmony last winter or spring, so the time away from her son would have been shorter. Maybe she should have gone east to them, instead of waiting until they were able to come west.
    She rolled to the other side, annoyed by the squeak of the inner-spring mattress. The latest, greatest in sleeping comfort, so said the advertisements. One night, and she was longing to return to her fainting couch in her room at the Silver Queen Saloon. She wondered if she had, perhaps, been played for a sucker in choosing the Mountain Springs House over, say, the Cliff House, which also touted that it had all the latest comforts of hotel and resort life in the Rockies.
    Inez had read the articles, pamphlets, and advertisements about the various Manitou hotels while in Leadville and considered the options carefully. The enthusiastic flow of words about the Mountain Springs House and its elegant accommodations, first-class dining, stupendous gardens, and up-to-date