by Brenda Joyce
"Thank you," he said, and he flashed his spectacular smile at her. "I have had a lot of practice."
Annabel found herself smiling back. This thief had nerve—lots of it. "I imagine you have. Who are you?"
He turned onto Seventh Avenue, still driving at a mad-cap pace. "You may call me Braxton." Two mounted gentlemen jerked their mounts out of their way, riding up onto the sidewalk.
She eyed him, aware of them racing past another motorcar. "Is that your real name?"
His smile reappeared, but briefly. "You are a clever girl." Suddenly he veered around an omnibus and pulled up at the curb in front of a store advertising suits for sale. A furrier's sign was hanging outside the second-floor window. "Now get out."
Annabel did not move.
He appeared relaxed as he sat there in the front seat, both hands lightly on the wheel. "I am not Louie," he warned. "And I do not need a hostage."
She wet her lips. "Yes you do. They will let you get away if you threaten to hurt me. I am certain of it."
He leaned toward her. "Aren't you frightened, Miss Boothe? Hasn't it crossed your mind that I might hurt you—or at the least get you killed accidentally?"
His gaze was mesmerizing. She could not look away, i "I can't. I can't go back there. I cannot."
He was staring. His eyes were opaque, impossible to read. "So it is the groom who terrifies you—far more than myself."
He did not frighten her at all. Not really—even though he did make her heart race. And Annabel had never been at all seductive before. But she was desperate. And even though men always lost interest in her soon wasn't just then. For she had not lied when she had said she could not go back.
If she went back now, they would try to marry her off to Harold Talbot. A fate far worse than death—or a tarnished reputation.
Annabel smiled to herself, shaking a little, the newly hatched plan having taken a firm hold on her. And then a thought occurred to her. She quickly pulled the veil from her head and stuffed it beneath the dashboard at her and Louie's feet. She winced, feeling guilty as she regarded him. "Why is he still unconscious?"
"That was some right hook," Braxton remarked. They were now on Ninth Avenue
, driving directly beneath the EL
She smiled. "Thank you."
He eyed her briefly. "You should be ashamed of such prowess."
"Yes, I should—but I am not like my sisters or other women." She reached behind her and began to undo the many small pearl buttons on the back of her dress. It was excessively difficult without a maid. "I did not mean to hurt him, though. I guess I do not know my own strength. When I was twelve I got into a fight with Tommy Bratweiller. I gave him two black eyes." She noticed they were heading uptown at a good clip now, and were already at Seventy-fifth Street
. She had never been this far uptown on the West Side. It was hardly like being in New York City—at least not the New York City she knew. Huge lots of land stood vacant amidst smaller buildings and warehouses. Through the gaps in the buildings, she could see the Hudson River to the west, and the cliffs of New Jersey soaring above it on the river's other side. She even glimpsed two goats in someone's backyard.
He looked at her. "Two black eyes, not one? Tsk, tsk." And then he obviously realized what she was doing.
She flushed but ignored him, pulling the bodice of her wedding dress off her shoulders and down to her hips. She was wearing a corset, chemise, petticoats, and drawers, everything lacy and trimmed with satin ribbons for the occasion of the marriage, so she was far from naked. Still, he continued to glance at her. She shimmied out of the dress. Her cheeks were hot. She ordered herself not to think about the fact that she was undressing in front of this man. Hadn't she swum naked in the lake up in the hills around Bar Harbor? In spite of her sisters' hysteria?
"What are you doing?" he asked in that oh-so-calm British way of his.
"I am too conspicuous in the dress," she said, feeling herself continue to blush. "I am sure the telegraph lines must be humming by now. As a bride, I am a red flag to the police."
"You are as conspicuous in your underwear," he returned evenly. Suddenly he turned off the avenue, into an alley between two barns. And he halted the motorcar, jumping out.
Annabel shivered, also climbing out over the still form of Louie. She eyed the small man. "Do you think he is all right?" She was worried.
He was opening the barn door. "I am sure he will revive in a moment or so," he said, returning to the driver's seat. "He used to box. Lightweight, of course. He never quite recovered. I think you may have gotten an old injury."
"Oh, dear." Annabel realized that he planned to hide the car in the barn. She said admiringly, "This is brilliant."
He slowly drove the automobile forward as if he did not hear her. Annabel walked into the barn behind him. She smiled at the sight that greeted her—a horse and carriage, the horse already in the traces. "Truly brilliant," she said, more to herself than him.
He stepped out of the car, slamming the door. This time, briefly, his glance met hers.
She watched him pull Louie from the vehicle, leaving him on the ground. He then took a medium-sized satchel from the carriage and slipped off his tailcoat. Annabel watched him removing the jewelry he had stolen from one small compartment sewn into the jacket's lining, transferring it to the satchel. "You have thought of everything," she said.
"I hope so. You might want to turn around," he remarked, removing his bow tie.
Annabel blinked as he reached for the buttons on his snowy white shirt. He smiled at her. She realized that he was undressing, and watched as his shirt parted, revealing a broad slab of chest dusted with midnight-black hair.
Immediately she turned her back on him. Of course he would change clothes. She berated herself for not realizing earlier that he would do so. But what had possessed her to stare? And she was certain that he had known that she had been staring.
She could feel herself flushing, and as she heard his clothes rustling—he was stepping out of his trousers, she presumed—she walked around the Packard to give herself something to do. He was tall and lean and handsome. He was bold and exceedingly cool. His accent was the coup de grace. If Harold had been at all like this man, she wondered if she would have objected so strenuously to the match.
Not that her family would ever allow her to marry a thief. It was a ludicrous thought.
Besides, she did not want to marry. All women turned into fools when they married, endlessly redoing decor, shopping until dropping, planning teas and babies. That was not for Annabel.
"Done," he said cheerfully a moment later.
She turned and found him clad in a sack jacket and
paler trousers. His evening clothes had been stuffed in the front seat of the Packard. A huge oilskin tarp was folded up on the floor, nestled among bales of moldy hay. "If you truly want to help, take up that end," he said with a nod at the tarp.
Annabel hurried to obey. "Does anything scare you?" she asked as they lifted the tarp in tandem and settled it over the Packard.
"Very little," he said, with a smile.
"You like this," she said after a moment. "You liked eluding the police."
"Didn't you?" he returned.
She refused to answer. "You have thought of everything," she mused. "Do you do this often?"
"Often enough," he said with a grin. He had a dimple in his left cheek, a cleft in his chin.
She watched him kneeling over Louie, gently slapping his face. "So you are a professional thief."
"Hmm. I do not think I need to answer that."
Suddenly Louie moaned, his lashes fluttering. "Thank God," she breathed.
"Didn't want to be branded a murderess?" he said somewhat mockingly. "An accomplice, perhaps, but murder would be too much?"
She met his gaze. There was a gleam there, perhaps of amusement. "I had no intention of hurting him. Murder is never justified."
He folded his arms and stared. After a long pause, he said, "It
is time for you to go home, Miss Boo the. And I am afraid you will have to make your own way."
She stiffened. "You would not abandon me now!"
"Not only would I, I am doing so."
Her eyes widened, her heart lurched.
"Gawd, wot happened?" Louie said, sitting up groggily, one hand going to the huge bruise on his temple.
"The lady dealt you a severe blow," Braxton said with
real amusement. "Change your clothes, my friend. We must be on our way.*'
Louie had now recovered enough to moan and glare at his partner in crime at the exact same time., Then he looked darkly at Annabel.
"I'm sorry," Annabel said, meaning it. She hurried to the thief. "You cannot leave me here—on the West Side—in my drawers and petticoats."
He smiled. "You are a fetching sight, my dear. I am sure that in no time at all you will be aided and abetted by some concerned and civic-minded gentleman and on your way back to the altar."
"I want to come with you! I can help—"
"No." He turned his back on her and reached down for Louie. "Let's see if you can stand," he said.
Louie stood with Braxton's aid and went around to the other side of the carriage to change his clothes. Annabel rushed over to the thief. "What must I do to convince you to let me stay with you—just for a few days?"
He folded his arms across his chest as he studied her. "You are very tempting. Just what are you offering, Miss Boothe?"
She swallowed. Did he mean what she thought he did? "I cannot return home. If I return, they will all try to force me back to the altar."
"That is hardly my problem." He was impatient now. "Louie! Hurry up."
"Aye, guvnor."
She gripped his arm. "Braxton. I will go back. But when I do, I must be ruined."
He was finally surprised. His eyes had widened. "Well, well. So you wish my services in this endeavor?"
She hadn't meant it literally. She had meant that she could not return until her reputation was smeared, enough so that no one would want her, and then she would be free to continue her life without interference from her father or all the silly, useless men he kept in-
troducing her to. For then no man would want her. Annabel bit her lip. His gaze was fixed on her face.
If she told him now that she meant she wanted to be ruined in name only, not in fact, he would abandon her, she was certain of it. She would tell him that later. "I cannot go back now. Not now. It is too soon."
Silence reigned as Louie reappeared from behind the carriage, clad now in a plaid shirt and corduroy trousers. He glanced from one to the other. "We got to go, me lord." He carried the clothing he had changed out of in his arms.
Braxton gave him a piercing look, which Annabel did not understand.
"Please," she said, stepping closer to him. Her heart beat wildly. She was not a fool. What if he ruined her, not in name, but in actuality?
There were worse things, she decided, than this man's kisses.
A lifetime spent with Harold Talbot, for one—or with some idiot just like him.
Braxton's jaw set. He strode to Louie, took his bundle of clothes from him, and shoved them at Annabel— against her chest. "You can dress in the carriage while we leave the city. Get in," he said.
Chapter Three
George Boothe paced his library with savage strides. He had removed his tailcoat and was in a waistcoat and his shirtsleeves.' The John Constable landscape, which was usually hanging over the marble hearth, stood on the floor, propped up against a tufted ottoman. The metal vault above the hearth was open, forming a dark and gaping hole.
Another gentleman, clad in an ill-fitting suit and a bowler hat,, sporting a handlebar mustache, sat on one of a pair of pale green velvet armchairs, a notebook in his hand. A brass-knobbed walking stick was at his side. Lucinda Boothe sat on the gold and green sofa in her gold evening gown, a cashmere throw over her shoulders, her daughters on either side of her. The two girls' husbands stood behind the sofa, also in their shirtsleeves. Lucinda was sniffing into a hankie. Her eyes were red from hours of intermittent weeping.
"Well, Boothe, I can only say that you have been had, and that this Braxton fellow has done a damn good job of it. Oh, excuse me, ladies." The mustachioed gent stood, snapping closed his notebook and pocketing both that and his lead pencil.
"I could have told you that, Thompson. What are you doing to get my daughter back?" Boothe demanded.
"As we speak," the city's police chief said, "patrols are being sent out. He will not be able to get off Manhattan Island, I promise you that."
"What about the ferries, the bridges?" Boothe demanded, pausing in his pacing only to glare at Thompson, arms akimbo, his red face flushed. "By now he could be in Jersey, by damn!"
"Sir, we have done this before. As I said, he will not be able to get off the island." Thompson smiled in satisfaction.
"Oh, my poor Annabel," Lucinda whispered, choking on a sob.
Melissa, sitting on Lucinda's left, made a sound— something very much like a snort. She was tall like Annabel, but her build was more delicate, her blond hair darker. It was, in fact—and to her horror—more brown than blond. "Poor Annabel jumped into the motorcar with the thief, Mama."
Lucinda cried out, bursting into tears again.
Boothe turned to stare at his middle daughter. "That is enough, Missy."
"Melissa," Lizzie said in utter consternation. She was petite and had dark hair and eyes, just like her father. It made a startling contrast to her porcelain skin.
Melissa made a face. "Well, she did. We all saw it. He pushed her away, but oh no. Annabel decided to go and run off with him."
"I do not think she was running off with him," Lizzie cried, standing and wringing her hands.
"Excuse me." Thompson stepped forward, facing -Melissa. "Why on earth would your sister jump into the perpetrator's vehicle with him—of her own free will?"
Boothe came between them before Melissa could answer. "Annabel did not jump into that motorcar of her own free will." He gave his daughter an I-will-disinherit-you glare.
Melissa folded her hands demurely on her lap and smiled angelically at Thompson.
Thompson faced Boothe. "Sir, if there is any chance that your daughter has run off with this Braxton fellow, then I need to know it—if you want her back."
"She hasn't run off with anyone!" Boothe roared.
"Oh, dear." Lizzie popped to her feet and gently tugged on Thompson's sleeve. "She was terrified. You do understand, a bride's jitters. That is all it was. Even Annabel would not run away with a complete stranger!"
Melissa snorted again.
Her husband, John, laid a restraining hand on her shoulder from behind. Their gazes met. "Ssh," he said, low.
Thompson saw it all. "All right. What is going on here? What are you all concealing from me? I am now exceedingly suspicious. Perhaps your daughter and this man were in cahoots. Stealing the jewelry together. Why, what a clever plan!"
"My daughter is no thief!" Boothe shouted.
"Oh, no," Lizzie said, paling. "Never! And Mr. Thompson, I would swear to this upon the Bible, Annabel did not know this Braxton gent. She did not."
"Perhaps she did. And kept it from you. Why else would she go with him willingly?"
Boothe sighed. "Thompson, Annabel is impulsive. Unruly. Good God, that's why it's been so hard to get her married. She has a heart of gold, is as honest as a human being can be, but she is, well, unconventional. My own daughter did not steal from me. She did not know this thief, Braxton. But I will admit it. She was dragging her heels over her marriage. Just last night she told me she wanted to break it off, but I would not let her." Boothe's face fell. He walked over to his wife and sat down beside her, taking her hand in his.
Lucinda wept now. "This is my fault. If I had listened to her, even tried to understand, none of this would have happened."
"Braxton still would have made off with Mother's jewels," Adam said. He was Lizzie's tall, da
rk, handsome husband.
"Annabel had to get married," Melissa stated. "We all have married, and she is the oldest. It is not our fault that she could not find true love!" She turned to smile at her husband. John smiled back and they clasped hands over the back of the sofa.
"Well, an unconventional woman is a reckless woman, and perhaps Miss Annabel met this gent, fell in love, and rushed off with him purposefully." Thompson nodded to himself.
"She did no such thing!" Boothe cried. But then he faced Lizzie. "Did she?"
Lizzie was white. "Papa, I am certain that she never laid eyes upon that fellow before this afternoon." But Lizzie's hands toyed with the folds of her evening gown. Her face showed dismay.
"You don't sound certain," Thompson said flatly.
"No one can ever be certain about Annabel," John muttered.
"She is truly impossible to fathom," Melissa stated. "Miss Boothe?" Thompson prompted Lizzie gently but firmly.
Lizzie bit her lip. Tears had filled her eyes. "Annabel would never . . ." she began, then trailed off. The tip of her nose was turning red.
"Do you know something you are not telling us?" Boothe was roaring again, but his eyes were wide and he was aghast.
"I do not know anything. I only know that I love my sister and she is the most brave and daring woman!" Lizzie flung her hands up into the air, tears trickling down her cheeks. Adam rushed to her side, slipping his arm around her. "She never said a word to me about meeting someone, or falling in love. There was a time when she was trying very hard to convince herself that Harold was right for her, but a few days ago she gave that up. She was terrified of marrying him—of marrying anyone, truthfully. She did not want to wed!"
"Annabel did not want to marry," Melissa agreed. "Not ever."
"Well. This is quite interesting. A very unusual woman, hmm?" Thompson had pulled out his notebook and made a short, decisive note. He slipped it back into an interior breast pocket. "Miss Boothe. Was your sister capable of falling in love with a complete stranger and running away with him?"
Lizzie stared. Her hand slipped into Adam's.
"Miss Boothe? I am not asking you if she did such a thing. I am asking you if she was capable of such recklessness."
