Pure Sin

by Susan Johnson

  “But, then, you’ve got some fine consolation at home,” Caldwell declared. “Can’t say which of my four wives consoled me best.”

  “Now, boys, just want to remind you that there are some of us who still love the wife we married the first time,” a wealthy congressman from New York cheerfully said.

  “Ain’t knockin’ first wives, Taylor. Just saying it’s damned hard to find that perfect one,” Caldwell said with an expansive smile. “Not that I’m not doin’ my share of tryin’.”

  “Since my father selected my first wife,” Adam interposed, “this time will be my last.”

  “Sounds like a man in love to me,” Caldwell boomed. “Send us a wedding invitation once you’ve got the Vatican paid off.”

  “I know a lawyer in Washington who could help you,” the congressman said. “Name of Tom Barton. Smoothed the way for an annulment of a twelve-year marriage with six children. Said it went like silk on silk soon as an agreeable price was reached.”

  “I’ll have James contact him, although attorneys in Paris are also essential,” Adam said. “But thanks, I’m interested in speed.”

  “Got the little lady in the family way already?” Caldwell inquired with a grin. “Have to turn up the legal wheels full speed if’n you do.”

  “No,” Adam quietly replied. “I just want my life back.”

  “She’s a beauty. We wish you luck and happiness,” the congressman said. “But with your luck, hell, you don’t need any from us.”

  “Appreciate it, just the same,” Adam replied. “And we’ll send out invitations, so plan on a trip west sometime this year.”

  “Think we can get through the Powder River country? Hear Red Cloud’s kicking up trouble on the Bozeman Trail.”

  “We’ll bring down an escort if needed,” Adam said. “The Lakota are traditional enemies of ours.” He didn’t mention they’d come with gifts last year, looking for allies. None of these men would understand.

  “Always forget you live with—”

  “—the Absarokee,” Adam kindly interjected to help out Grant Putnum, who wasn’t sure how to refer politely to his heritage. To most easterners, Indians were either noble savages or dangerous savages without discrimination for tribe or individual.

  “Hell, my grandma was a Comanche, Grant,” Caldwell pointed out. “If’n your family settled out west early enough, that’s how the family tree looks, or else there wouldn’t be no family tree. Don’t have to go tippy-toeing around being polite just ’cuz Adam here has a shade darker skin and that long hair and those damned earrings like some Gypsy. He’s just a man same as us, even if he is too damned good a poker player for my bank account. Don’t mind saying, Adam, my games are going to be a tad more profitable once you get on that train for Montana.”

  “And I’ll be considerably more comfortable once I’ve put some distance between myself and Isolde,” Adam said, rising from his chair. “Good night, gentlemen.” He smiled. “We’ll see you next at my wedding.”

  Walking out onto Matilda Street, Adam turned in the direction of the Clarendon, quickly estimating the time remaining to see to the packing. He’d left instructions with Mrs. Richards to assemble some minimum clothing and supplies for Lucie and herself. He’d see to his own things. His railway car was well stocked, and what they left behind could be packed by the hotel and shipped later.

  His most pressing obligation now was seeing that Lucie was safely away from Isolde. Knowing Isolde’s utter selfishness, whatever her plans for Lucie, they wouldn’t be advantageous to a child.

  Preoccupied with his plans for departure, Adam didn’t notice the man farther back in the crowd keeping pace with him. There were a good number of strollers enjoying the summer night despite the late hour; all the hotel dances were still in full swing. Music drifted on the summer air, the sounds of laughter and conversation eddied around him as he wove through the crowd on Broadway, his swift stride moving him past those enjoying a more leisurely pace.

  After passing the Grand Hotel, the crowds thinned, only the small Clarendon remained on this section of Broadway. Adam occasionally glimpsed stars now between the branches of the elms overhead, the scent of flowers from the hotel gardens sweet on the air, the summer evening idyllic. The portico lights of the Clarendon gleamed in the distance. Only a few minutes more …

  A gunshot exploded, shattering the tranquillity.

  Adam dived for the ground and rolled, his survival skills honed to a fine edge by raiding and war parties. Even as he plunged for cover, he was returning the fire, the revolver he’d carried in a shoulder holster since seeing Frank Storham last night blazing into the darkness. He assumed his assailant was Frank, although the dark figure that had slipped around the large elm tree was momentarily concealed from view.

  The initial screams from pedestrians at the sound of shots lapsed, and Broadway was suddenly empty, the crowds vanished in a stream of fear. The doorman was gone from the Clarendon entrance, the night utterly still, the distant gaslights from the hotel porch the only illumination under the shadowed elms.

  “Almost gotcha, Injun!” A voice of elation. Frank’s voice. “Gonna kill you when you least expect it, damned if I ain’t!”

  The constable in Saratoga wasn’t going to be much help, Adam understood, nor was Frank likely to come out and face him now that he realized his target wasn’t unarmed. If he wished, he could wait for Frank to slip away, but that would leave a dangerous man free to ambush them later—perhaps on their way to the station, or on the trip home.

  Or he could go and get Frank Storham.

  Not a difficult choice.

  As he reloaded his revolver, Adam gauged the distance between himself and the tree across the street—roughly thirty yards of wide-open space, of moonlight … and shadow. The shadows would help, and he didn’t expect Frank was sober. Two advantages in his sprint across no-man’s-land.

  Snapping the loaded cylinder back into place, he checked the street one last time. Untenanted silence. Pushing himself upright, he leaped in a bound the low hedge that had served as cover, hunched low, zigzagging with agility and speed, twisting to one side and then the other to avoid the hail of gunfire aimed at him, diving across the last few yards into the protection of some shrubbery, pumping out two rounds as he finally caught sight of Frank’s form.

  At Frank’s piercing scream Adam was already rolling to the right; he rose to his knees and fired again, dropped, rolled, stood upright, and fired three swift rounds into a target that was fully visible now.

  And he watched the dark figure of Frank Storham crumple to the ground in a grotesque, doomed languor, falling to his knees first, his arms slack at his sides and then slowly toppling over.

  He shouldn’t have felt the eerie chill; he’d seen men die many times before. The Absarokee were assailed by enemies, surrounded by tribes wanting their lands; warfare was a way of life.

  But Ned Storham had purchased a small army to protect his grazing lands and allow him to expand beyond its perimeters. When he learned how Frank had died, Adam expected he’d need an army of his own to guard his valley. Not an unexpected eventuality even without Frank’s death, but a more imminent one now.

  Stupid, drunken fool, he scathingly thought, gazing at the widening pool of blood spreading under Frank’s body. He didn’t have his brother to back him here, and he wasn’t fast enough to survive on his own. But even in death he was still a damnable menace.

  Sliding his Colt into the holster under his arm, he slipped into the shadows and walked away from the Clarendon. He didn’t have time to stay in Saratoga for a formal investigation into Frank’s death, not with Isolde breathing down his neck. He’d approach the hotel from the north and enter by the rear door.

  Chapter Twenty

  The scent of camellia warned him, but seconds too late. He was already inside his suite. Or more pertinently, Isolde was already inside.

  And warned or not, he couldn’t retreat with Lucie asleep in her room.

  He stood with h
is hand still on the door latch, his back against the closed door, exhausted, impatient, painfully aware Isolde was going to exact a high price for her presence.

  “How did you get in?” he softly said.

  Seated on the sofa, she faced him across the lamplit room. “The night clerk was so very accommodating when I told him I was your wife.” She was ablaze with diamonds, the richness of her toilette reminding him disagreeably of their wedding, when the papers had reported on the noteworthy value of her jewelry along with all the other details of the aristocratic nuptials.

  “Where’s Mrs. Richards?” He spoke very quietly, his hands at his sides as though ready for a gunfight.

  “With our darling daughter, of course. You needn’t glare like that, they’re both quite safe.”

  The word “safe” brought with it apprehension. “Who else is here?” he asked.

  “Just my driver and maid, darling.”

  “Where?” His gaze swept the room.

  “Why, protecting Lucie and Mrs. Richards.” Her reply held menace.

  “You obviously want something, Isolde,” he carefully said, prepared to negotiate. “Why don’t we come to some agreement and you can be on your way?” He wanted her out of the suite and away from Lucie as soon as possible. He’d pay any price to protect his daughter. “You must want money. You never wanted anything else from me. Tell me how much.”

  “What a cynic you’ve become, sweetheart. Your new little whore must be having a bad influence on you.”

  “Look, Isolde,” he murmured, controlling his urge to strangle her and be done with it. “We can trade insults all night, but I’m in a damnable hurry, so if you’ll speak plainly, I’d appreciate it. I’m leaving for Montana on the eight o’clock train.”

  “How convenient. We’ll go with you.”

  “No.” Blunt as a hammer blow.

  “Darling,” Isolde gently reproached, “how terribly rude. Do you mean to tell me I can’t come to Montana with you?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean.” He would manage to keep Lucie safe without the ultimate price of Isolde back in their life.

  “I’m afraid, then, I’m going to have to disagree,” she calmly said, drawing a derringer from beneath the frothy folds of her skirt.

  For a stark moment he couldn’t believe it. Twice in less than an hour, he thought. The dark spirits were looking for his blood tonight. He inhaled, slowly let his breath out, and quietly said, “What the hell is this all about, Isolde? You know killing me won’t make you any richer. You’re clearly left out of my will with the exception of the more-than-generous sum we agreed on for living expenses.”

  “I’m interested in having sex with you tonight.” She could have been saying “Pass the salt,” so expressionless was her tone.

  “Have you lost your mind?” For a man who prided himself on sangfroid, his astonishment showed.

  “Really, dear,” she mildly observed. “You’ve always entertained a great number of ladies. It won’t take long.”

  “I’ll pass.” With the same firm conviction he would reject the guillotine.

  “I don’t recall asking for your approval.”

  “Is this a command performance?”

  “Merely a necessity.”

  “I won’t under any circumstances. Shoot me,” he blandly said, the range on her derringer not sufficient to do more than wound him; his revolver, on the other hand, could kill her nicely.

  “Why don’t I have my servants shoot Mrs. Richards instead?” Isolde said as if she were selecting a new hat from a number of choices. “She’s so much more expendable.”

  She might. With Isolde he couldn’t be certain. He’d seen her beat a servant with a riding crop once, and if he’d not come in on the scene and stopped her, the girl would have been severely hurt. “Do you want to be fucked there on the sofa?” Adam coolly replied. “Or somewhere else?”

  “The sofa will be fine. Let me call my two witnesses.”

  And then he understood. Two witnesses were required to corroborate conjugal relations. Could she have anticipated his desire for an annulment after meeting Flora? But even children didn’t matter in an annulment, and certainly not conjugal relations. The second possibility was that she was pregnant and in the market for a legal father. The baron must have shirked his duty. His vote was for possibility number two.

  How ironic. The woman he loved couldn’t have children, and the wife he despised wished him to be the father of her child.

  Again.

  When Isolde’s servants came into the sitting room from Lucie’s bedroom, Isolde’s handsome young driver gave Adam pause, and he considered perhaps he was standing in as father for a servant’s child. Isolde’s maid was a bold piece who cast a slow, appreciative glance his way and licked her lips as though she were anticipating the coming occasion with personal pleasure.

  Adam calmly watched without expression when Isolde had her maid lock the door to Lucie’s room as a precaution against Mrs. Richards’s escaping. He took note of the time with a swift glance at the mantel clock, for he intended to be on the train when it left—with Lucie and Mrs. Richards safe and without the added baggage of his wife and her entourage. It wasn’t a matter of negotiating anymore; it was a question of survival.

  “Is all in readiness?” Adam sardonically inquired as Isolde handed her derringer to her maid and the young manservant took a revolver from his coat pocket. “I can’t remember when I last performed for an audience. It was in my adolescence, I think, when debauch was a delight in itself.”

  The manservant gazed at Isolde with a transient lasciviousness as Adam spoke, and Adam decided the paternity of Isolde’s child was definitely at issue.

  “Kindly do what you do so well, Adam,” Isolde coolly said, kicking off her silk slippers and lying back on the sofa, “and we can all be on our way to Montana.”

  “I’d forgotten how romantic your sensibilities are,” Adam murmured, moving toward her. “It certainly puts me in an amorous mood.”

  “As I recall, mood has nothing to do with your amorous propensities. All you need is an available woman.”

  “Well, we’ll certainly put rumor to the test now, won’t we, darling? I pray I don’t disappoint you. Do you still squeal when you climax?” he inquired, watching the young driver with an oblique look.

  Apparently she does, he thought with amusement; the man’s face had flushed a rosy hue.

  Sitting on the couch at Isolde’s feet, he slipped his shoes off, smiled at the witnesses, and sardonically said, “Pay attention, now, I don’t care to repeat this.” Then, turning to the woman who had made his life hell on numerous occasions the last five years, he added, “Shut your eyes and think of money.”

  Leaning forward, he pushed her skirt up with both hands and, taking her by the shoulders, moved as if to adjust her beneath him. But his left hand flashed downward, slid under his trouser cuff, closed on the bone handle of his knife, and wrenched it from its scabbard. Jerking Isolde upright, he swung her around so she faced their audience and pressed the razor-sharp blade against her throat. Two drops of blood trickled down her pale neck.

  “Now, then,” Adam serenely said, “let’s discuss this situation. Not you, Isolde, you could bleed to death if you so much as move. I can’t guarantee my temper at the moment.” And he took vengeful delight in her wide-eyed fear. In all the years of their marriage he’d never raised his hand to her, but she’d finally demanded too much. “Hand me both those guns first,” he ordered the servants, sliding his revolver from his holster and aiming it at the driver. “Don’t dally. I’d really like to kill my wife. I may anyway,” he thoughtfully added, “but if you cooperate,” he went on with a tight smile, “at least I won’t kill you.” He had no intention of firing his weapon unless absolutely necessary. With the limited time before train departure, he couldn’t afford the imbroglio sure to follow a discharge of firearms inside the Clarendon.

  The guns were immediately turned over because neither servant cared to die f
or Isolde. She didn’t inspire loyalty. After disarming them Adam directed the maid and driver to the bureau drawer that held his latest poker winnings. “You may divide it between you,” he said, “and then kindly leave Saratoga. There should be enough money to satisfy you both.”

  It took some time for the servants to count the money, but when the last bill had been tallied in a perfect division of spoils, they cheerfully left.

  “You should pay your help better. Isolde,” Adam suggested as the door clicked shut behind them, “and they might be willing to put up a slight struggle for you.” Releasing her, he pushed her away, tired of her machinations, genuinely fatigued, pressed by time to arrange his departure. “If you need money,” he said, leaning back against the sofa, the weariness in his voice profound, “tell me and I’ll write you a draft. But I don’t want to see you again.”

  “You can’t get rid of me that easily, Adam,” Isolde replied with a loathsome smile. “We’re married and we’ll stay married, despite what you wish.” She held the final card, the unbeatable one, with divorce illegal in France. “Your engagement to that Englishwoman will have to be eternal.” She reclined against the sofa arm in a casual languor as if they were enjoying a late night tête-à-tête.

  “Maybe I should just kill you now,” Adam said with disgust, sick to death of her viciousness, of her venal self-interest. “I could strangle you, pack your body in a trunk, and toss you off the train our first night out. Don’t press your luck. Now, if you want money, tell me. I won’t offer again.”

  His voice held a morbid finality Isolde hadn’t heard before. An astute observer of the male sex and a businesswoman at heart, she sensibly said, “Fifty thousand.”

  “Go to Morrissey’s in the morning and they’ll give you the money.” His voice was no more than a murmur, his eyes half-shut.

  Reaching down for her silk slippers, Isolde slid them on and, rising, straightened her skirt as if they’d just shared no more than a cozy chat. “You know a divorce isn’t possible,” she coolly said, “even if I was obliging enough to give you one. And you know how your brothers feel.”