by Brenda Joyce
Katie jumped to sit down on the floor, careful not to touch Leigh Anne’s legs, and Dot cried, “Read, Mama, read more!”
Leigh Anne cleared her throat and began to read. “‘So the little boy felt sad. Robert started to walk away…’”
Bragg turned and left the room.
In their bedroom, he stripped off his tie. It fell to the floor and he realized he was angry. He shrugged off his suit jacket, unbuttoning his shirt. He had no right to be angry and he knew it. She was crippled because of him. There was simply no getting around it and she had every right to blame him, avoid him and even hate him.
But damn it, he wanted to be in the children’s room, with Leigh Anne and the girls, not alone in the master suite, feeling caged up and enraged.
If only he could fix this!
Bragg flung his jacket to the floor but did not feel better. He stalked into the bathing room and paused, removing his shirt and dropping that as well. He leaned on the vanity, staring at his reflection in the mirror. He looked tired, disheveled, grim, with the eyes of a haunted man. He rubbed the stubble on his jaw, biceps bulging, and heard Dot shout with laughter. His heart hurt even more.
God, how was he going to manage this marriage now? He had thought his life a living hell before, when he had refused to accept a reconciliation with Leigh Anne, only doing so when his wife had forced his hand. He had hated her so much for denying him the divorce, for coming between him and Francesca and then for promising him that very divorce, providing he meet the conditions she laid down.
He had let her move in for the six months they had agreed upon. She had promised him that, if after six months, he still wished for a divorce, she would not contest it. And that was when she had had the accident.
Now, divorce was out of the question. Not only would he never abandon Leigh Anne in her state, he didn’t want to. All he wanted was to take care of her and the children. He wanted them to become a family. But God, that seemed like an impossible dream.
He needed a drink.
Bragg went into the bedroom. A brass bar cart was against one wall by the bookcase, and he poured himself a stiff bourbon. He was sipping it repeatedly, determined to find some mental and emotional relief, when he heard Leigh Anne telling the girls that she would be back to tuck them in after Mrs. Flowers readied them for bed.
He hesitated, knowing she would refuse his help, but the gentleman in him demanded he try.
He set the glass down, shrugged on a smoking jacket, and stepped into the hall. Leigh Anne sat in the wheeled chair in the children’s room, looking grim and unhappy. He forced a smile. “Let me help,” he said, approaching. “No!”
He froze.
She smiled back at him. “I’m fine. I need to do this by myself, don’t I?” Her tone was one of forced cheer.
Unable to dissuade her, he returned to the bedroom, straining to hear. But as the moments ticked by he heard only the sound of the nanny and the girls in the bedroom. There was silence in the hall. He slammed down the bourbon and walked to the door.
Leigh Anne sat in the chair, now in the center of the hall, tears on her cheeks. When she realized he was present she looked up, anger sparking in her eyes. “Don’t,” she warned.
He realized she was stuck. One of the chair’s wheels was jammed against one wall. He ignored her, rushing over.
“I don’t want help.”
His hands were on the chair’s handlebars and he flinched as if burned. “It is going to take some time to get used to moving about,” he said more quietly. “There’s no reason for you to expect to master the chair the first time you try it.”
She covered her face with her hands.
“Please,” he added, and he heard the anguish in his tone. Not waiting for a response, he moved the chair down the hall and into the bedroom. His wife’s seductive fragrance enveloped him.
She dropped her hands, wiped her eyes. “I apologize. That was rude.”
He walked around the chair so he could face her. “Don’t treat me as if I were a stranger,” he heard himself say.
Her gaze slipped down and he realized he had belted the smoking jacket so loosely that a good deal of his bare chest and abdomen were revealed. She flushed, looking away as he quickly pulled the lapels closed and tightened the belt, although she had seen his chest bare a dozen times since their reconciliation. And suddenly he thought about being in bed with her—about holding her gently in his arms and stroking her hair, her face, until she slept. Unfortunately, desire slammed over him, stiffening every inch of his body.
He ignored it. “It will get easier,” he said to her. “I feel certain of it.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” she said, refusing to look at him.
And he couldn’t stand it any longer. “If I could undo it all, Leigh Anne, I would. Right back to four years ago! I wish I had paid attention to you then! I wish I hadn’t taken that damn job defending crooks and indigents. I wish I’d gone to that fancy law firm the way you wanted, the way we’d planned, I wish we’d bought the mansion next to my parents, I wish we’d started our own family! I wish I’d brought you back from Europe when you left instead of turning around and coming home alone! I would undo it all if I could.”
She stared, her face suddenly devoid of color.
He started. “Are you all right?”
It was a moment before she managed a small, uncertain smile. “Yes.” She looked away, closing her eyes and trembling.
He knelt and took her hands. “Please. I don’t mean to dis tress you any further. But that is how I feel. I regret every choice I have made since we married,” he said earnestly.
Leigh Anne suddenly turned her face aside, wiping her eyes. “It doesn’t matter anyway, not now,” she said. Her smile was odd.
He didn’t stand. He was terribly aware of her and wanted to lay his cheek on her lap. “Yes, it does matter, because my regrets are sincere. I have treated you terribly since you arrived in the city. I’m sorry.”
She bit her lip and said nothing.
He got up. “I know you blame me for this. And I don’t blame you. I know the accident was my fault, just as I know that my apology changes nothing. Still, I am so sorry.”
She stared, two bright spots of color appearing on her cheeks.
“I can’t fix what happened. I can’t undo the damage to your leg. But I am determined to take care of you,” he said, and he managed a smile. “I swear it.”
She looked away, closing her eyes tightly. And he had no idea of what she was thinking or feeling.
He reached for her small, cold hand. “Just let me take care of you,” he whispered. “Things will be different now, I promise.”
Tears slid down her cheeks, escaping her tightly closed eyes.
“Leigh Anne?”
She swallowed and looked at him. “You don’t have to take care of me, Rick.”
She had spoken so softly he thought he had misheard. “What?”
“The accident wasn’t your fault. I don’t blame you. I don’t blame you for what happened at all.”
He stared in disbelief. And then he felt the relief begin to well. “Do you mean it?”
She nodded. “How could you blame yourself for an utter accident?”
But he did blame himself—and he always would. He was beyond relieved, though, that she did not. “If you don’t blame me for the accident, then why didn’t you want to come home? Then why are you avoiding me every moment we are together?” he heard himself ask.
She hesitated. “It’s too late, Rick.”
Comprehension began. “Too late?”
“You can wish on the moon, but the past is real. The misunderstanding, the lies, the lovers, that hate. It’s all very real,” she said. She was starkly white and she began to shake.
“What are you saying?” he cried, but he knew.
She shrugged, more tears falling. “It’s simply too late for us to have a second chance. Not now. Not like this.”
“YOUR SIX-IN-HAND IS dr
awing undo attention,” Francesca remarked, having just climbed down from the large, handsome barouche. Pedestrians passing by had paused to stare, as had several men leaving the corner saloon.
“I think it is you receiving the undo attention,” Hart murmured, his hand firmly grasping her arm. His gaze met hers and then slipped over her stunning turquoise evening gown. The velvet shawl she wore, a deeper, darker shade of blue, concealed very little.
They were out of place, Francesca realized, both of them in their elegant evening clothes and having come by such a lavish coach. The men going into the saloon wore shabby wool shirts and patched trousers. Many were drunk. And she happened to be the only woman present on the sidewalk. “Joel? We’ll walk you to your door before we speak with Mrs. O’Neil. It’s late. Your mother must be worried.”
“No one’s home,” Joel declared. “They were gone earlier—left me a note. Went to supper, they did, with your brother.”
Francesca started in sheer surprise. Then delight began. “Maggie is with my brother?” She glanced down the block. “Maybe they have returned—”
“Light’s out,” Joel announced. “They’re not back.”
Francesca glanced at the window that she thought probably belonged to the Kennedy flat and it was black. She continued to smile. “I wonder where they went,” she murmured, more to herself than Hart.
“You are insatiable,” Hart said in her ear. “And it shows.”
She smiled up at him, keeping her voice low so that Joel wouldn’t hear her suppositions. “I can’t help myself. This is beyond intriguing—my brother is far too fond of Maggie for it to be mere friendship.”
“I would highly advise you not to meddle,” Hart said with a sudden smile. “If you can restrain yourself.”
“Of course I can,” she returned, somewhat indignant.
“We shall see.” He took her arm more firmly. “Lead the way, Joel,” he said.
Joel was more than pleased to do so, and a moment later Gwen O’Neil was opening her door. “Miss Cahill!” She gasped in surprise. She was very pale and her red nose and swollen eyes were testimony to the fact that Joel had not exaggerated the situation. Clearly she had been crying for some time.
“Mrs. O’Neil, this is my fiancé, Calder Hart. I know it is late, but may we come in? I’d really like to help you if I can,” she added.
Gwen clung to the door. She nodded. The moment they had filed past her and were inside, she slammed and bolted the door. Then she wiped her eyes with her fingertips. “I have an allergy,” she whispered. “Spring fever.”
Francesca saw that the drapes were drawn at the far side of the room, indicating that Bridget was asleep behind the partition. She laid a palm on the woman’s narrow shoulder. “How can I help?” she asked kindly. “Has something happened that we do not know about? That you have not told us?” She kept her voice down.
Gwen shook her head, looking ready to burst into tears.
“What is wrong? You weren’t this distressed a few hours ago when I was here with the police commissioner.” And as she spoke, she felt Hart’s sudden interest. His gaze bored into her back. She wished she had not brought up the touchy subject of Rick Bragg.
“Before, I thought I might be imagining it,” Gwen whispered.
“What did you think you were imagining? Did you think you were being followed again?”
“On the crosstown omnibus,” she said hoarsely. “I could feel his stare, I swear, but I saw no one, and then I had to walk the last few blocks. It seemed fine, normal, you know, so I thought I had made it up in my mind!”
“And what has changed since this afternoon?” Francesca asked.
Gwen swallowed. “I’ve seen him. Out there, through the window, on the street. He’s there now, in a doorway, by the saloon. I’ve caught him staring up at my window, Miss Cahill, I am certain of it!”
For one moment Francesca stared, trying to recall a man in the doorway near the saloon as the men exiting it had paused to gawk at her and Hart. But she had no image of any figure lurking there. Hart said, “I’ll see what I can find.”
“Yes, that’s a good idea,” Francesca said. As Hart started for the door, Joel racing to accompany him, she restrained Gwen from rushing to look out of the window. A plan occurred to her. “Calder, maybe you should drive by in the coach, slowly—”
“I think I can handle this, darling,” he said with some amusement and a shake of his head. And then he and Joel were gone.
Francesca had the insane urge to watch, too. Her heart beat hard with excitement and alarm. If Gwen was right, if someone was stalking her now, there was a possibility that he was the Slasher. And that meant he was a killer. And Hart was going after him.
It crossed her mind that he was unarmed, but she had a pistol in her purse.
He could be in danger.
“Stay here,” she cried, opening her bag as she raced across the flat and out the door. The stairwell was dark and empty, Joel and Hart on the street by now. On the landing below she paused, taking the pistol out of her bag and then using the velvet clutch to hide the weapon from any casual onlooker’s view.
Her heart pounding, she went to the tenement’s front door and saw that Hart had left it ajar. She peered outside.
Instantly, she saw that Hart and Joel had split up. Hart was across the street, clearly on his way into the saloon, undoubtedly on the pretense of wanting a drink. That was an excellent plan. She did not see Joel. Undoubtedly he was staked out somewhere, in case their quarry made a run for it.
She swallowed and fought to see into the shadows that covered the various cellar doorways surrounding the saloon. The lamp on the corner did not cast its glow very far. Beyond the saloon entrance, it was impossible to see. If a man loitered in one of the doorways, she simply could not tell.
For Gwen to have seen him, he must have stepped well out onto the sidewalk. Why was he now being so cagey? Did he suspect their presence? Or had he simply gone?
Hart clearly did not see anyone either, for he never broke stride, disappearing into the saloon.
Her palm was wet. She eased her grip on the tiny revolver, dismayed. If the stalker had been present, Hart would have seen him and pounced. The minutes ticked by. Two rowdies entered the saloon, but otherwise, the street was empty and deserted, due to the late hour of the night. Francesca stared so hard at the opposite doorways that her gaze blurred. And suddenly she saw a man emerge from the shadows into the glow of lamplight.
Gwen had been right.
Francesca glimpsed no more than the huddled shape of him and the pale skin of his face, but if she did not miss her guess, he was staring directly up at Gwen O’Neil’s window.
She did not know where Hart was, damn it, but she was not going to let the man escape. She dropped her purse and started from the doorway at a run, aiming the gun in the vagrant’s direction.
He saw her and froze.
“Hands up,” she shouted as if she were a policeman, the entire street between them. “Halt and put your hands up!”
Ignoring her, he started to run past the saloon.
At that precise moment, Hart burst from the saloon. He tackled the man before he got to the corner of the block, knocking him down on his belly. A moment later, as Francesca ran up, Hart was astride him, pulling the man’s hands behind his back. And then he was using his necktie to shackle the man’s wrists.
Panting, Francesca halted beside them. Joel joined her at a run, also out of breath.
“I didn’t do nothin’,” the man cried. “Nothin’!”
Hart stood and turned to Francesca, his eyes wide with disbelief. “I said I would handle it!”
She bit her lip. “But you went into the saloon and I thought—” She stopped in midsentence.
“And you thought what, Francesca?” Calder demanded, taking the gun right out of her hand.
She felt wretched. “I knew you didn’t have a weapon so I came downstairs to protect you if things went awry.”
His gaze wi
dened. “You thought to protect me?”
She nodded glumly. Now she was in trouble, indeed.
“You were not protecting me by barreling out of that tenement and demanding that this man put his hands up!”
She grimaced. “But you went into the saloon instead of apprehending him. I thought you did not see him.”
“I saw him, Francesca. I went into the saloon to take off my tie so I had some means of restraining him, as I do not carry a gun like you do.” He was very angry, indeed.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered as meekly as possible.
“I doubt it,” he said coolly.
He was right—she really wasn’t sorry. He wasn’t hurt and they had the stalker! But they could argue about this later. “Hart, take him up to Gwen’s so we can interview him!” she cried, a satisfied smile appearing on her face as she peered down at the man who had now sat up.
Hart gave her a dark look that meant that she was not off the hook, not by any means, but he hauled the man to his feet. “Do you have a name?” he demanded.
“You’re not coppers. If you’re not coppers, who the hell are you?” the man demanded in a strong Irish brogue. He was very slim and rather tall, with dark brown hair and pale blue eyes. He wore the coarse cotton and wide-weave wool of a working man.
“I am Francesca Cahill and I am a sleuth,” Francesca said briskly. “And I have no problem taking you up to police headquarters, if that is where you wish to go.”
He scowled at her. “I done nothin’ wrong.”
“Of course, if you speak to me, there is no need to bring the police into this,” she said, and she smiled winningly at him.
The man scowled and spat in her direction.
Hart moved. With a sudden growl, he seized the man by the back of his corduroy jacket and threw him face first into the building. “What’s your name,” he said calmly, holding him hard there. And he lifted him as if prepared to smash his face on the wall again.
Hart was so elegant that Francesca had forgotten how he had grown up. He had been born a bastard on the Lower East Side, not far from where they now stood. She cringed even as she gaped at him.
