Secret Hearts

by Duncan, Alice

  Claire pulled her plain, dull shawl more tightly against the December chill and walked blindly away from Miss Thelma’s. She was in such a flutter of excitement and trepidation as she dashed across the street toward the mercantile that when she heard a nearly forgotten voice call to her, she thought for certain it was her conscience taunting her. She was so shocked she tripped and had to grab onto the hitching rail to keep from falling down.

  The voice called to her again, and Claire’s heart executed a series of crazy stumbles and then crashed like a boulder caught in an avalanche. Turning, she whispered, “Oh, no!” and fought the urge to weep in despair.

  “Claire!” came yet a third jovial cry, and Claire saw him: Claude Montague—master rogue, unscrupulous medicine-show huckster, gambler, libertine, thief, cheat—in short, her father.

  She whispered, “Oh, no!” again, and frantically looked around for somewhere to hide. In only a second, she recognized the idea to be futile. She could never escape now that he’d found her. She could, however, prevent herself from being seen talking to him on the public main street of Pyrite Springs, where she was known as a good woman, a straight-laced woman, a woman of strong moral fiber and impeccable decorum.

  Rushing over to him, she grabbed him by the coat sleeve. “Come into the alley,” she ordered, and almost upended him as she dragged him between the Pyrite Springs Mercantile and Furniture Emporium and LaVira Pitts’ Ever-Fresh Bakery.

  There, immersed in the delicious smell of freshly baked bread, Claire demanded, “How did you find me? What are you doing here? What do you want?”

  Claude frowned. “Now, is that any way to greet your long-lost father, my child?”

  Since she’d known him since her own infancy, Claire snapped, “Yes. Is Clive with you?”

  “Clive experienced a bit of a misfortune in Seattle, Claire. I’m afraid he couldn’t make the journey.”

  “In jail, is he? Well, that’s good,” said Claire of her only sibling. “At least I only have to deal with one of you. Now what do you want? I know you wouldn’t have come here unless you wanted something.”

  Twirling his mustache, Claude peered at Claire critically. “You look a sight, child. Why are you dressed like that? Why, you’re a regular dull dog. You never had any looks to begin with, you know, my girl. It’s a damned shame to accentuate all your negative qualities the way you’re doing. You need some color, Claire. You need a little frill here and there.”

  Claire was fairly seething with rage and frustration by this time. She stamped her foot, a silly thing to do in the dirt-packed alley, as she realized almost at once when a dusty cloud rose at her feet.

  “Yes, Father. I recall very well your assessment of my looks. And what you used to make me do so people wouldn’t notice them. How I choose to dress is absolutely no business of yours. What do you want? Don’t even begin to think I’ll go back to your awful medicine show.”

  “Pshaw, child, the things you say.” Claude looked around with distaste. “Why are we standing here in this alley, Claire? Come with me and we can have a nice cozy chat at the Fool’s Gold Saloon, where I’m staying.”

  “I’m not moving a foot in your company, and wouldn’t enter that vile establishment if my life depended on it,” Claire said through gritted teeth. “I refuse to be seen with you. Now stop stalling and tell me what you want.”

  Her expression was every bit as ferocious as her father’s was sly. As she glared at him, she experienced genuine loathing. A handsome man, Claude Montague had traded on his looks for years. Women used to feel sorry for the plausible, good-looking reprobate who paraded his poor orphaned children around, feigning a solicitude for them he did not feel. Claire remembered bitterly the way he’d used her to lure unsuspecting women into his snare.

  He’d never cared a lick about her except insofar as she could be useful to him. He’d left her to her older brother Clive’s care, and Clive had resented the duty. She had come to hate them both years before, and the ten years she’d been away from them hadn’t softened her attitude at all. If anything, those years had given her perspective, and she detested them now more than ever.

  “So you think you’re too good for your old father now, do you?”

  “I most certainly do.”

  Claude apparently hadn’t expected exactly this reaction from his only female offspring. His eyebrows dipped. “I always did the best I could for you, Claire.”

  “Don’t make me laugh!” she cried, as far from laughter as she’d ever been.

  Splaying a beefy hand over his breast, Claude muttered self-righteously, “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have one’s child turn on one.”

  “As usual, you’ve got the quote wrong. Now stop blathering this instant and tell my why you’ve come here to blight my life.”

  “Well, I like that!” Claude declared, offended. “She hasn’t seen her dear old father for ten years, and just listen to her.”

  “You listen to me, Father. The only reason you even kept me was because you could use me in your show and lure poor soft-hearted women into your clutches. I know you, and I know you have about as much family feeling as a barracuda. If you don’t tell me what you want right this minute, I’m going to tell the sheriff, Mr. Grant, that you’re wanted for fraud in the Colorado Territory.”

  Giving up his pose as a loving parent, Claude glared at his daughter for several seconds before he muttered, “Oh, all right.”

  Then he adopted the expression of cunning Claire remembered so vividly from her childhood. Her fallen heart began to shrivel even before he spoke.

  “I met a friend of yours, my dear, on the train outside of Omaha. A Mr. Oliphant. Remember him?”

  Claire’s insides began to twist painfully. She gave him one brief nod.

  “We got to chatting over a bottle of brandy one night. He told me a most amusing tale.”

  Dear heaven. If poor Mr. Oliphant had allowed himself to drink with her father, Claire already knew why Claude had come to Pyrite Springs. She breathed deeply several times. The two words, “tangled web,” danced through her head again, mocking her.

  In the space of seconds, she weighed her options and came to the only possible conclusion. As she had no gun handy, she would have to pay her father blackmail to keep him from telling Tom Partington she was the author of those wretched books.

  “How much money do you want to keep quiet?”

  The wily Claude smiled. “Well, now, my dear, I understand you’ve managed to create a virtually limitless supply of funds with those dime novels of yours. You always were a clever little minx. I knew you’d do me proud one day.”

  “Stop slinging rubbish and get on with it!”

  Claude wisely ignored his daughter’s outburst. “And since it was I who saw to your upbringing and education for all those years, it seems only fair that you provide for your poor old father in his old age. Don’t you think so?”

  Furious, Claire exclaimed, “No, I certainly do not! Why, you unscrupulous old fraud, you never cared a thing about me! You never saw to anything but your own welfare. If it wasn’t for those poor deluded women who used to think they were in love with you, I’d never even have learned to read and write!”

  Disconcerted at having his past flung so candidly into his face, Claude muttered, “Now, Claire, that’s not true.”

  “It is so! Oh, you make me sick!”

  Claude frowned mightily. Since, however, he was a shrewd man and knew better than to argue with his clever, sharp-tongued daughter, he said, “Two thousand dollars, and I’ll never darken your door again.”

  “Two thousand dollars? Why you miserable old charlatan! I ought to go to Sheriff Grant right this minute!”

  “Ah, but you won’t, will you, Claire, because your high-and-mighty Mr. Tom Partington wouldn’t like it.” Claude looked quite smug as he twirled his mustache and smirked. “Anyway, from what Oliphant said, two grand is peanuts to you. I should think you’d consider it a small price to pay to get rid of m
e.”

  Staring at the man who had fathered her, Claire couldn’t help but feel sorry for her own mother. Undoubtedly, she’d been one of Claude’s long list of victims. She’d probably died just to get away from the awful man. And now Claire was to be added to the list.

  Well, so be it. Claude was right. Two thousand dollars was a small price to pay to get rid of him.

  Poking him hard with her forefinger, Claire said coldly, “Stay right here and don’t move. If you go out into the street, I’ll pretend I don’t know you.”

  Without waiting for him to reply she stormed off, leaving him there in the alleyway. She deliberately scuffed her shoes in the dirt so that dust would puff up into Claude’s face. Even his sneeze did not mitigate her fury.

  When she made her withdrawal at the Pyrite Springs Bank her expression must have been black because Mr. Twitchell, the teller, didn’t even try to make small talk. Stuffing the money into a large envelope, Claire stalked back to the alley where Claude lounged, smoking a fat cigar. He greeted her with a bland smile, as though they were mere acquaintances and not mortal adversaries.

  Slapping him in his paunch with the envelope, Claire snarled, “There. Now get out of my life and stay out.”

  “Tut, tut, child. I really think you should treat your old father with more respect than this.”

  “Just be grateful I don’t walk around town armed.”

  Claire had the satisfaction of seeing Claude’s eyebrows arch in genuine surprise right before he snatched the envelope from her fingers and marched away, striving for a dignity she knew he didn’t possess. She watched him until he turned down the street and out of her sight, a hand pressed to her forehead, her heart a raging cauldron of despair. The stagecoach rattled past, and Claire had a mad impulse to scramble onto it and go wherever it would take her.

  If only she could be certain her father would keep his word and leave her alone.

  Silly Claire. Of course, he wouldn’t keep his word. She knew that. Blackmailers were never satisfied; it was a well-known fact. She’d read terrible tales about blackmailers and the resultant despair they wreaked upon unlucky souls who harbored black secrets.

  For heaven’s sake, blackmail was one of the novelist’s best friends; she’d even used it herself once or twice in her books. Blackmailers always came back for more. Especially this blackmailer. Her father was the worst man she’d ever met in her life; she didn’t trust him an inch.

  “Dear heaven,” she moaned softly. “Please, Lord. . . .”

  But she didn’t know what to ask. Even if she’d thought of something, she didn’t expect God would look with much favor upon a woman who was perpetrating a beastly deception on the man she loved. Claire sank back against the wall of the Pyrite Springs Mercantile and Furniture Emporium and fought the urge to shriek her frustration to the heavens.

  # # #

  Tom had sent Jedediah Silver back to Partington Place earlier in the day, since he had some inquiries to make of the farrier, Colin MacDougall. Now, his business successfully concluded, he rode the placid Ebony down Pyrite Springs’s main street, feeling grand. He’d opened an account at the bank expressly for his horse enterprise, wired his breeder in Montana, made arrangements with a builder to assess his mansion for the laying of gas lines, and chatted with several people who just seemed to want to offer friendly greetings.

  Since he’d become an adult, Tom hadn’t lived in any one spot long enough to make friends. He did, of course, boast a flock of comrades who were fellow scouts, but they hardly qualified as the types of settled associations he seemed to be acquiring in Pyrite Springs. The idea of living here, of having an abundance of casual friends and acquaintances, gave him a gooey, warm feeling in his chest.

  His conversation with Miss Thelma this morning had gone even better than he’d expected, too. She was on his side when it came to convincing Claire Montague that she was an attractive, desirable woman.

  He pulled his horse up short when he saw a portly gentleman stride out of an alleyway, twirling his waxed mustache and grinning like a cat who’d just caught a big fat mouse.

  Tom didn’t care about the portly gent. What caught Tom’s eye was Claire Montague, staring after the retreating man and looking as miserable as he’d ever seen a human being look.

  Her expression tore at his heart strings and he found himself wanting to kill the self-satisfied gentleman walking away from her. He leaped from his horse just as the stagecoach rumbled down the road in front of him. When it passed, Claire no longer stood in the alley and he had no idea where she’d run off to. Nor was the mustachioed fellow anywhere to be seen. Damn.

  He was troubled as his horse carried him down the road toward Partington Place. Try as he might, he could think of no suitable way to approach Claire with his worries. Her private life was not his concern; she’d have every right to tell him to mind his own business if he asked, damn it.

  Worry plagued him, though. He didn’t like his Claire to be so upset about anything. Most particularly, oddly enough, he didn’t want her upset about a man. And who could the fellow possibly have been? Resolving to consult with Jedediah Silver on the matter, Tom made his way back home.

  # # #

  Somehow, Claire managed to walk with a fair semblance of calm into the Pyrite Springs Mercantile and Furniture Emporium before she collapsed. Dianthe St. Sauvre, who had been critically studying some delicate eyelet lace, rushed over to where Claire had sunk, trembling like a leaf, onto a cracker barrel.

  “Claire! Whatever is the matter? Are you ill?”

  Even Sylvester, who had been brooding over a particularly troublesome passage in his book and ignoring Dianthe, put down his pencil, flipped open the hinged counter-top and walked to her side. “What’s the matter, Claire? You look like hell.”

  Dianthe scowled up at Sylvester, who shrugged.

  “Oh, my God,” Claire whispered. “I’m doomed.”

  Dianthe’s eyes opened wide. “Whatever can the matter be? Please tell us, Claire! Perhaps we can help you.”

  Claire dug into her pocket for her handkerchief. “Nobody can help me,” she declared dramatically. “It’s too late.”

  “Good God, you’re not consumptive, are you?” Sylvester began backing away from Claire, his expression one of absolute terror. “Don’t cough on me, Claire, please.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Sylvester, don’t be absurd.”

  Claire had never heard Dianthe sound so resolute and cranky. Her friend’s attitude gave her courage and she swallowed the tears she had begun to shed. By Jupiter, if the fluffy Dianthe could be firm in a catastrophe, so could Claire. Of course, Dianthe had no idea what the catastrophe was, but that didn’t matter. Her friends cared; their solicitude gave Claire strength.

  Sitting up straight and gathering her shredded composure around her, Claire said, “It’s my father.”

  “Your father has consumption?” Sylvester began to look less terrified and more puzzled.

  “Did something happen to your father, Claire?” Dianthe asked sympathetically.

  “Yes. He came to Pyrite Springs.”

  As her voice conveyed none of the joy generally associated with such a family reunion, Dianthe merely blinked at her. Sylvester looked more interested and he walked back to her side.

  “Um. . .” Dianthe began, obviously unsure of herself, “are you and your father at odds, Claire dear?”

  “At odds?” Claire uttered a brief, harsh laugh. “He’s the most loathsome human being on the face of the earth, Dianthe! He’s a fraud and a cheat and a vile, despicable villain! He’s a blackguard, a scoundrel, a charlatan and a vile pretender!”

  “My goodness,” Dianthe murmured, stunned.

  “Really? Tell us more, Claire.” Sylvester pulled up another barrel and plopped himself down on it, fascinated.

  “I couldn’t believe it when I heard his voice. I know God is punishing me for deceiving Mr. Partington. I know it!”

  “Nonsense!” Sylvester said roundly. “Tell
us more about your father. Maybe I can use him in my book. Ow!” He glared at Dianthe, who had pinched his arm.

  “Can’t you see that Claire is terribly upset, Sylvester? Forget your stupid book for a minute, can’t you?”

  “Forget my book? My stupid book? Why, I like that!”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean anything and you know it,” Dianthe said crossly. “But let’s see if we can’t help Claire before you use anybody’s father in your book.”

  “Yes, please help me,” Claire begged. “I need your help. I don’t know what to do. He’s threatened to expose me!”

  Tapping her delicate chin with an equally delicate finger, Dianthe murmured, “Well, now, before he can do that, perhaps it’s time you told Mr. Partington yourself, dear. I get the impression he’s quite taken with you, you know.”

  “Me?” Claire cried, shocked.

  “Claire?” Sylvester cried, also shocked.

  Dianthe looked peeved. “Yes. Claire. I don’t know why you both seem so surprised. It was obvious to me, and I should know.”

  Claire and Sylvester shared a glance. Dianthe’s idea was so absurd, Claire almost forgot her miseries and laughed. Almost.

  “You’re very sweet, Dianthe, but I know Mr. Partington only cares about me as a housekeeper. Perhaps,” she added, daring to dream, “he might even think of me as a friend.” She couldn’t quite make herself admit the truth aloud—that no man, least of all her hero, Tom Partington, could possibly look at Claire when Dianthe was in the room.

  “Well, perhaps,” Dianthe conceded—rather too quickly, in Claire’s estimation. “But I still think you should tell him yourself now, Claire. It would spare you all this worry and anguish and then your father would have no further hold over you.”

  “Is he really so bad, Claire?” Sylvester asked, all ears. “You must tell us more about him.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  A glance at her friends, however, both offering her their services out of the goodness of their hearts—well, out of the goodness of Dianthe’s heart, at any rate—made her decide it would be unfair of her to keep her past a secret any longer.