He sat at his desk, his hands folded beneath his chin, when Milos rapped on the edge of the desk.
Nicholas glanced up.
“You all right?”
“Yeah.” He made a semblance of straightening the papers before him even though he had already confided in Milos, and knew he didn’t have to put up appearances.
Milos tossed a stack of mail into a wire basket and held out an envelope. “You might want to see this.”
“What is it?”
“I just came from Western Union. Sam Pierce’s been holding this for…” He paused. “For Claire. Sarah.”
“What is it?” Nicholas asked again.
“Seems she told him not to send it with anyone else, to hang on to it for her. But when I told him she wouldn’t be back, he had me sign for it.”
Nicholas took the envelope and slit it open. He unfolded the telegram. “It’s from the Pinkerton agent who investigated Claire for me.” He read further. “He’s located a body he believes is Claire Halliday. She was buried in a Boston cemetery.” He cut Milos a sharp glance. “As Sarah Thornton.”
Chapter Eighteen
Boston, Massachusetts
Nicholas stood before a three-story brownstone and rapped the brass knocker gracing one of the black lacquered double doors.
A male servant opened it and greeted him. “Mr. Halliday?”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Thornton is expecting you. This way.”
Nicholas followed the man across a foyer and into a masculinely furnished library. A stout man with steel-gray hair stood and shook his hand. His eyes were as blue as Sarah’s, but lacked the warmth. “You didn’t state your business in your message,” he said, immediately coming to the point.
“No. It’s a delicate matter, and I thought it best to speak in person.”
“And you’ve come all the way from Ohio to speak to me in person?”
“Yes.”
“Must be important. Have anything to do with your foundry?”
Nicholas wasn’t surprised the man had checked him out. He’d have done the same. “No. It has to do with your daughter.”
The man stiffened. “I have no daughter.”
“Yes,” he corrected. “You do.”
Morris Thornton’s expression hardened and he cocked his head. “If you’re not here about investments, I have no wish to speak with you.”
“I’m here about Sarah.”
“If you’ve come to claim responsibility for her indiscretion, I’m afraid it’s too late.”
His words took Nicholas aback. Was he accusing Nicholas of seducing and then abandoning her? Nicholas’s ire had been awakened, but he spoke with practiced composure. “I’ve come with some shocking news,” he said without preamble.
“Oh, what? You weren’t the first?”
Nicholas held himself in check. “Sarah is still alive.”
The man seated himself without offering Nicholas a chair, opened a humidor and selected a cigar. “Sarah and her bastard are dead.”
His cruelty shocked Nicholas. “No. You buried my sister-in-law and my brother’s child in that grave. You didn’t identify the body, did you?”
Sarah’s father stared about the room before turning his gaze to Nicholas. “No.”
“Did anyone identify the body?”
“It had been weeks since the train accident I was notified, sent the body and her trunk. I knew it was the stupid girl. I had her buried next to her mother.”
“I can understand why you wouldn’t have been able to identify her. And I know you had Sarah’s trunk as evidence that the body belonged to your daughter. But that young woman was not Sarah.”
He gave Morris the details, sparing any mention of his feelings for her. “So you see, she’s very much alive.”
The man leaned back in his chair for a long minute, then heaved himself forward and stood. “No. My daughter is dead. She will not destroy my reputation in this business community. I have important clients—clients who have invested with me since I began my business more than thirty years ago, and I will not allow her poor choices to harm my associations with them. My daughter died the day she defied me and defiled my good name.”
Nicholas studied the hard-eyed, hard-hearted man. “You would choose appearances—money—over your daughter?”
Morris Thornton met his stare without flinching. “I have no daughter. As far as I am concerned—as far as this city is concerned, Sarah Thornton is dead.”
In that split second, though he’d never seen it before, Nicholas recognized her father’s face. He recognized the drive and the power and the all-consuming ambition.
He recognized the man he had almost become.
And he saw something else, too. He saw the reason a young woman who’d made a mistake had been forced out of her home and onto a train bound for catastrophe. And he understood why Stephen’s kindness had been something she clung to like a last hope. For someone who’d received so little kindness from her own father, a stranger’s benevolence must have seemed a godsend.
And perhaps it had been.
“You’re right,” he said, his tone low and controlled. “You don’t have a daughter. A man like you doesn’t deserve a daughter. And especially not one like Sarah.”
The man’s hard expression did not change. “Get your body,” he said. “But do it quietly.”
“I will see to it before I leave town. And I’ll arrange to have the rest of Sarah’s things picked up, too.”
“There is nothing of hers left here.”
Nicholas stepped to the door. “I believe that’s where you’re wrong. Her spirit is here. Her memory. Live with that.”
He let himself out of the house.
* * *
A few nights later, Milos joined him in his study after dinner. “I spoke with Morris Thornton,” Nicholas said, leaning back and lighting a cigar.
Milos clipped the tip from his and accepted the burning match from Nicholas. He puffed and tossed the match into the empty fireplace. “What did you learn?”
In deference to the sultry evening, both had abandoned their jackets and rolled back their sleeves.
“Why Sarah left,” he replied dryly. “He had the coldest eyes I’ve ever seen. The man isn’t human.”
“And now you’re joining your mother in sympathizing with her?”
“I simply understand her a little better.”
“What is it you understand?”
“She felt guilty. That’s why she had Pinkerton’s find Claire’s body.”
“You’ve had Claire’s body brought here?”
Nicholas nodded. “All these months the man believed his daughter was killed in a train accident. I went to him, revealed that she wasn’t dead after all, and—it was as though the truth would have inconvenienced him. He preferred his daughter to be dead.”
Nicholas still couldn’t comprehend the man’s denial and hostility.
“But Sarah found the real Claire for you and your mother.”
“And for Stephen.”
“She’s not the woman you wanted to believe she was, is she?”
“What do you mean?”
“It was easier to have her run away when you believed she was only out for your money. Now that you know differently, it’s more difficult to accept.”
“But she stole from us.”
“She said she’d pay it all back, didn’t she?”
“The jewelry wasn’t on the list she intended to pay back,” Nicholas scoffed.
Milos seemed to mull that fact over at length. “She detailed her hospital debt, her clothing, everything down to the last flannel, promising to pay you back, and yet she never mentioned a fortune in gemstones. Don’t you find that odd?”
He did. He blew a smoke ring and watched it dissipate into the humid air. She wasn’t the person he’d first thought. She’d taken care of the Crane family without being asked, without expecting anything, without even letting him know. She’d seen that all of Claire’s cl
othing had been put to good use.
She hadn’t asked for clothing for herself, in fact Leda had insisted and forced her to accept the dresses and underclothing.
“I find it even more odd that she sold her mother’s bracelet first,” Nicholas said. “It meant a great deal to her, but she sold it before she sold our pieces.”
Milos agreed. “That does seem illogical. You’re sure the old woman didn’t take it?”
“Positive,” Nicholas said. “Besides, the jeweler’s wife described Sarah.”
“How did she describe her?”
Nicholas repeated her recounting.
“Had you ever seen her wear a veil besides the day of the funeral?” Milos asked.
“No.”
They smoked. And thought.
“And the perambulator. Is something like that missing?”
Nicholas shook his head. “She never had one. Of course she could have bought it after selling the bracelet.”
“Seems a bit odd to buy a baby buggy when one is planning to catch a train, don’t you think?”
Nicholas agreed.
They observed each other.
“Perhaps it was a disguise,” Nicholas said first.
“Someone else with your baubles who wanted it to look like Sarah took them.”
“Who?” Nicholas asked, wondering aloud. He sat forward abruptly.
“What is it?”
“Judith!” Nicholas shouted, jumping out of the chair and gesturing with the cigar. “Why that—”
“The actress? When would she have had the opportunity to steal them?”
“That day she waited here at the house for Sarah. One of the servants probably brought her tea, and after that she had time to go upstairs before they checked on her again.”
“This means you don’t think Sarah took it.”
“This means I don’t want to believe Sarah took it.”
“Now what are you going to do?”
“I’m still going to find her. And William. For Mother.”
Milos gave him a skeptical glance. “Of course,” he said knowingly. “For your mother.”
“Did I get any messages while I was out?” Hot and cranky, Nicholas waited for a reply.
The desk clerk at the Hotel Gold gave Nicholas a patient once-over. “No, sir.”
“If a telegram comes for me, I don’t care what time it is, come wake me.”
“Yes, sir.”
Nicholas crossed the elegant lobby and climbed the curved stairs without noting any of the hotel’s ornate appointments.
All day he’d walked the streets of Fort Wayne, looking for a woman with a baby, too impatient to wait in his room, and eager to find a lead to Sarah’s whereabouts.
His Pinkerton contact had traced her this far, and promised that if she hadn’t gone on west, they would locate her within a day or two.
Letting himself into his room, he removed his jacket and tie and opened both windows wide. He glanced around. The bed had already been turned down, and fresh towels were stacked near the bowl and pitcher set.
He removed his clothing and washed with the tepid water in the basin, immediately feeling cooler and his temperament somewhat improved.
From his leather satchel, he withdrew a few papèrs, the letter from Sarah among them. He unfolded it as though it were a love letter, and read again the words he’d already become familiar with.
She might have left her father a letter when she left him, too. She might have written him since she’d been gone. Nicholas envisioned the man throwing her letters away unopened. He was a cold, unfeeling man who probably had no trouble sleeping at night even though he’d tossed his daughter out into a dangerous world.
The image of Sarah, her lovely hair and lush body, never left his mind. He could picture her now, as clearly as though she were there with him. Any man would be drawn to her. And obviously at least one man had been.
How would she protect herself? How would she take care of William on her own? The thought of something happening to either of them was enough to tie his stomach in knots. He hadn’t eaten a meal without thinking of her, without wondering if she’d eaten that day.
He hadn’t lain down to rest without wondering where she slept at night.
She would be forced to do anything she could to survive. And if he knew little else about Sarah, he knew she was a survivor.
He refolded the letter and laid it on the bedside table. Turning down the brass-based parlor lamp until the flame went out, he lay down and stared into the blackness.
Where was she tonight? What thoughts crept through her head and kept her from sleep? Regrets. Shame. Fear.
She had intended to tell him, her letter said. It had been a misunderstanding, and she’d meant to straighten it out. Why hadn’t she?
He’d gone to the hospital after making arrangements for his brother’s body and their trunks. He’d first seen her sleeping in the hospital, so small and alone, with fading bruises on skin as pale and delicate as the petals of a white rose.
She’d had a bandage on her head, and her leg in a cast, and he’d known then that he would take her home and protect her from further harm.
And when he’d come back the next time, she’d been anticipating his arrival. Perhaps she’d been prepared to tell him then. She’d been sitting in the wheelchair he’d purchased for her, one hand holding a hat on her blond mane, the other struggling to secure it with a pin.
Had he given her the opportunity to tell him?
Her eyes, as wide and as blue as the Ohio summer sky, had followed him as he approached and beheld the tiny squirming infant he’d believed to be his brother’s.
And then what had he said to her? He’d told her his mother was waiting for them. He’d assured her that she had a place to live, and reported that he’d paid the hospital and doctor.
She’d asked how much that had been.
She’d only met him, and already she was indebted to him for the chair, the clothing, the medical fees. And he’d been his usual brisk self and impatient to get going.
No, he hadn’t given her much of a chance to tell him. And admittedly he wasn’t the most open and understanding man she could have been indebted to. He’d been critical and suspicious of her as Claire, and she no doubt dreaded what he would have done if he’d known she wasn’t Claire.
So then she’d planned to tell Mother upon their arrival. And what had his mother done after setting eyes on the two of them? Immediately cried and professed her need to have them there. William had been her solace, a healing balm for her pain and anguish. And Sarah had recognized that. And been unable to hurt her any more than she’d already been hurt.
When he thought back over the time she’d been with them, Nicholas understood her confusion and her reticence. In her own strange way, not telling them had been a kindness.
He didn’t know what he’d have done if she’d told him the first day…or the first week…or the first month. Each day she hadn’t revealed her identity, doing so must have grown more and more impossible. He didn’t want to think he would have tossed out a frightened young woman with a broken leg and an infant to care for. He hated thinking of himself as being of the same caliber as her father.
He wasn’t.
But he’d been opposed to Stephen marrying someone from Claire’s background, hadn’t he? He had never approved of Stephen’s acquaintances or his pursuit of the theater. He’d seen all those energies as directed wrongly, and constantly urged him to come back where he belonged.
Nicholas rose, wrapping the sheet around his waist, and stood before the window, the humid breeze cooling his damp skin. He’d been so damned hard on Stephen. He’d never given him credit for accomplishments he hadn’t approved of or even allowed him to enjoy his time at home without criticizing and running him off again.
Maybe if he’d been more understanding, less critical, Stephen wouldn’t have rebelled as fiercely.
It had been important to their father that Halliday Iron prosper, and
that his sons pass it down to their sons. Nicholas had never wanted to let down his mother or his father’s memory, so he’d done the work of two men.
And resented Stephen.
He understood the weight of guilt.
Tears blurred his vision. Several young women dressed in hotel uniforms passed through the golden halo of a street lamp below. Distractedly, he noted the late hour for them to be leaving their shifts, and went back to the bed.
Surely tomorrow he would hear.
Why had finding Sarah become an obsession for him?
He was concerned for her welfare.
Why? Because he wasn’t like her father.
He needed to clear the air between them and assure her he didn’t hate her as she feared.
Why? Because her guilt and shame weighed on his heart.
He had to see her again. Had to show her she belonged with them…with him.
Why? Because—Nicholas squeezed his eyes shut and looked deep inside himself—he loved her.
Chapter Nineteen
Sarah prepared William for the day and nursed him, noticing her breasts weren’t as full as they had been. William had been unusually fussy for two days, which worried her. He could be coming down with something.
She didn’t want to spend the price of doctor’s fees, because after paying for her board and a few supplies each week, she didn’t have much left to save. But William was more important than anything, so she left early, hoping she could see the doctor before she had to be at the hotel.
The office was located above a building a few blocks from the hotel. Climbing the flight of stairs in the side alley, she turned the crank doorbell.
A middle-aged man opened the door and stepped back. He opened another door and ushered her into a small room with an examining table and a row of cabinets. “What seems to be the problem?”
“It’s William,” she said, laying him on the table and holding him in place. “He has fussed the last couple of days. He’s never cranky, even in the heat, but he cried last night.”
Cheryl St. John Page 24
