Hannah's Promise

by Cheryl Anne Porter

  As if heeding his silent warning, his burden began to moan and flail about in his arms. When she cried out in waking confusion, Slade gladly slid her off his lap and sat her next to him on the narrow seat. He turned to face her, his hands on her arms, steadying her until she was fully awake.

  But then his breath caught. Despite her disheveled clothing, her little black hat being askew atop her ruined chignon, and even with that blinking, unfocused expression on her face, she was in truth a most engaging woman. But, something more about her nagged at him. Something he couldn’t quite—

  A blinding flash tore through him, leaving him openmouthed, as if words he couldn’t form needed to be said. When he almost had it, could almost name it … just as suddenly, it was gone, leaving him reaching out to her on a level not physical. Frowning, Slade shook his head and drew back, staring at her.

  She chose that moment to turn her head toward him. The dilated pupils of her otherwise light eyes made them appear almost black in the carriage’s dim interior. “Where am I? What happened?”

  “You went into a faint as we approached the cabs. Do you remember that?” Then, testing her awareness, he asked, “And do you perhaps remember your name?”

  She stared blankly at him, then frowned to the point of screwing up her features. Slade’s eyebrows rose. Here came the tears. But instead, she closed her eyes and put a hand to her forehead, rubbing it tiredly. “Yes. It’s Hannah.”

  A good, working-class name. It suited her clothing, but not her delicate bone structure and well-modulated voice, despite her quaint speech. More intrigued by the moment, Slade heard himself repeating—stupidly enough, in his own opinion—“Hannah. That’s a nice name.”

  Ignoring him, she leaned her head back against the padded wall and closed her eyes. Slade watched her, taking in the curve of her cheek, the set of her slender jaw, and her swanlike neck. Such a feminine ideal. A sudden prick of awareness—not like the first one, but more a sense of having seen this very profile before—stabbed at him. But that was impossible. Because if he’d seen her before, he never would’ve forgotten her.

  When she opened her eyes and lowered her head, she turned to him. And turned on him. “You’re Slade Garrett.”

  She made of his name a filthy slur. Momentarily taken aback, Slade could only frown. At that moment, the brougham jounced heavily, its careening motion sending them into each other’s arms. She clung reflexively to him for the barest second, but then pushed herself away. Every rigid line in her body shouted that his touch was repugnant to her.

  Then, so be it. Slade crouched over to the opposite seat. Sitting with his shoulders firmly against the padded backing, his legs spread and his arms folded over his chest, he looked her up and down. Why had he thought her desirable? She was nothing more than a common girl. And an ungrateful one at that. Damning his earlier moment of male weakness that put him in her company, he spoke up. “You say my name with a lot of vinegar. Have I perhaps done you some great harm at one time or another?”

  His words hung in the air between them, suspended by the brittle October air and her completely unexplainable look of hateful contempt. “That, sir, is something I intend to find out.”

  Just who did this little country mouse think she was? “Find out what? Ahh, I see. You think I took certain liberties. I thought about it, but I assure you, I did not. I take my pleasure from the willing. And the conscious.”

  Her eyes widened. She looked down in horror at her mussed bodice and her skirt twisted about her legs. Hastily setting herself to rights, she met his gaze with a naked but fleeting look of the purest vulnerability and injured innocence that he’d ever seen. It was gone within a second, replaced by an icy stare of insult taken.

  Wondering if he’d imagined that first look, and feeling like a cad for purposely giving her the impression that she’d been mistreated, Slade nevertheless frowned right back at her. Only the brougham lurching to a stop broke the unwavering stare between them. With studied nonchalance, he turned to pull aside the leather curtain. They’d arrived at his brownstone.

  He turned to Hannah. “You have no need for concern. Your purity is intact … I assume. And don’t be alarmed, but we’ve arrived at my residence. Since you were in a faint, my choices were either to leave you at the depot or bring you here until you were able to continue on.”

  He paused, assessing her, wanting to rage at her for again looking so helpless, so injured. And for making him feel responsible. “I’m late for my afternoon appointment. A cab follows with your belongings. Perhaps I could hire the driver to take you on to … wherever it is you’re going?”

  “No, you’ve done enough. Probably too much.” She gave another tug to her fitted bodice as if to underscore her meaning. “I can hire him myself.” With that, she gathered up her handbag and scooted forward on the seat, preparatory to getting out.

  Slade surprised himself by putting his hand over hers on the door’s latch. “Wait.” She eyed him in a questioning but direct way that Boston’s finest young ladies never employed. Disconcerted, Slade realized he had no idea what he’d been about to say. He just knew that he didn’t want her to leave. “Rigby will get the door.”

  Which he did at that exact moment, wrenching it open with a suddenness that flung the occupants together. The girl squawked and Slade cursed. Then he met her blue-green eyes, only inches from his. That shock of awareness coursed through him again. And she felt it, too. Why else did she draw in her breath and remain in his arms?

  “Beg pardon, Mr. Garrett.” Ribgy’s shocked apology broke the moment. Slade pushed back, helping Hannah to regain her seat. Mustering a modicum of dignity, he turned to his openmouthed young coachman and spoke in a voice laden with denial that anything was out of the ordinary. “Well, don’t just stand there, Rigby. See the lady out.”

  “Yessir.” The coachman, in a rain-soaked slicker and with a nose reddened from the cold, bobbed his head and held out his gloved hand to the lady. Slade watched her take Rigby’s hand and begin her descent. As he helped her out, Rigby again turned to him. “Will the lady be staying on, sir?”

  Before Slade could even blink, the lady took matters into her own hands. “No, Rigby. The lady will be on her way.” Like a queen exiting her royal carriage, the country mouse named Hannah alit. Then, standing out in the slashing rain, she turned to peer back into the brougham. “Thank you for your help. I owe you that much.”

  Slade eyed her silently, feeling an inexplicable sense of loss steal over him. Still, he managed to keep all emotion off his face as he tipped his hat to her. “The pleasure was all mine … by all accounts.”

  * * *

  There it is. Cloister Point. Filling Hannah’s vision, the vast Wilton-Humes estate nestled on a point of land in a privileged, outlying area of Boston. Staring out the hired cab’s window, she gathered her courage. The awful weather and foul traffic and rutted roads had all conspired to make of the journey a slogging, inching trek. But now, it was worth it. She supposed.

  The white stone mansion, stately as a tall cake and big as a fort, sat back from the curving road and capped a low hillock. An iron fence girded the immaculate grounds. Barely taking a breath, refusing even to think, Hannah stared at her mother’s childhood home until her vision blurred. She sniffed, reaching up to wipe away a tear. Inside were her grandparents. And they hated her because she was her father’s child.

  Defeated, she sat back from the window, slumping against the seat. Even though she no longer looked at the mansion, it burned in her vision as she stared straight ahead. The estate was beautiful, lavish even, but it struck her more as … indifferent in its very inaccessibility. She bit at her bottom lip. It wasn’t too late. She could still turn around and leave.

  Hearing herself, and cursing her nagging fears, Hannah sat up straighter and raised her chin. She would not, could not go back on her promise to Mama and Papa or on her blood oath with Jacey and Glory. No more waffling. In only a few moments, she would face her kin for the first time. And
they would know the wrath of a Lawless.

  The cabriolet rocked under her. Caught unawares, Hannah clutched at the seat. Then she relaxed, realizing the motion was no more than the driver climbing off his box. Sure enough, the door opened, and the coachman’s bulbous-nosed face poked inside. Shoulders hunched against the wet cold, he informed her, “There don’t appear to be no one about, miss. D’ya want me to go an’ see before we get yer things down?”

  With a sinking feeling, Hannah looked from him to the mansion, this time seeking particular details. Shuttered windows. No light shining from within. Had she come all this way for nothing? A flutter rippling through her belly, she refocused on the little man in front of her. “If you would, please.”

  He bobbed his head and closed the door. Just as suddenly, he opened it again. “And who shall I say is calling? These Brahmins don’t take kindly to … visitors they ain’t expectin’.”

  Hannah locked gazes with the man. Clearly he didn’t think she was worthy of gaining entrance through anything but the kitchen door. For the first time in her life, she uttered her middle name with a sense of using it to put someone in his place. “Tell them Miss Hannah … Wilton Lawless has arrived.”

  The driver’s expression changed, became more deferential. He even dragged his cap off, leaving his balding head exposed to the elements. “Wilton”—he swallowed on the word—“Lawless? Sorry, miss. I’ll be gone only a moment.” With that, he swiped a hand over his wet scalp and quickly resettled his cap. One darting movement later, he rounded the cab and disappeared from sight.

  Her heart thumping like a scared rabbit’s, Hannah waited, her gloved hand holding back the leather curtain over the window. The coachman reappeared almost immediately as he padded up the curving drive and then rounded a corner of the mansion, obviously going to a side door. With nothing to do but wait, Hannah steeled herself with a review of her plan.

  She had to admit, it wasn’t much of one. Beyond getting herself here and insinuating herself into the Wilton-Humeses’ lives, she didn’t have structured intentions. But she did know she couldn’t blurt out her accusations and expect to get the truth. No, she would have to reside here, under false pretenses, in order to gather any evidence of their guilt or innocence.

  And if they were responsible? What would she do then—go to the authorities? What could they do about two murders that occurred out in No Man’s Land—a territory bounded by no law agency’s jurisdiction? Would Boston officials investigate her accusations of Wilton-Humes treachery? She looked again at the mansion, and knew on whose side the law would fall—the Brahmins’. The coachman hadn’t confused her with that term. She’d often heard her mother refer to her family as Brahmins, a term bordering on affectionate sarcasm that identified those members of Boston’s highest social caste.

  Seeing what and who she was up against, Hannah accepted that she would have no help in this town. She could not afford to trust anyone, and she would have to exact vengeance herself. But what form it would take, she had no idea. Could she kill someone in cold blood? She rubbed at her throat when the very idea constricted it. What had she gotten herself into?

  Her attention quickened when she saw the coachman round the same corner again and, holding on to his cap, retrace his steps back to his cab. Gasping, out of breath, he told her, “Sorry … miss. Place is … locked up tight. I couldn’t raise a … soul.” His rapid exhalations puffed white in the cold air.

  Hannah’d never considered that they simply wouldn’t be home. What now? What if they had several homes? They could be anywhere. How could she find out? Who would know? A strong, mocking face with piercing black eyes popped into her head. Aha. He’d know. She had evidence of that in her handbag. The letterhead with his name on it.

  But did she dare face him again? She’d escaped him once with him knowing only her first name, one common enough not to arouse undue suspicion. Could she be so lucky a second time? It occurred to her that he could quietly have her killed, and no one in Boston would be the wiser. An ugly picture of her body floating in Boston Harbor—his own words—assailed her overworked imagination.

  “Beg pardon, miss, but it’s a long drive back to Boston proper, and I’ve got a family to get home to. It’s gettin’ darker, and it ain’t gettin’ no drier, nor no warmer out here.”

  Hannah’s vision cleared as she focused on the poor man in front of her. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I’m sorry. But please, just another moment.” Fraught with doubts, she kneaded the folds of her handbag, until her fingers traced the reassuring outline of her pistol. She suddenly wished she were back home, where Western justice was fast and simple. But she wasn’t home. And she’d have to play the hand she was dealt.

  Forced into a corner by circumstances, Hannah came out fighting. She would be bold. She would take chances. The moment was here to engage the enemy, to stride right into his camp. To show Slade Garrett what it meant to have Lawless blood flowing through one’s veins. Hannah turned to the shivering driver. “Take me back to Mr. Garrett’s brownstone.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Dudley Ames, does the current financial panic mean nothing to you? One look at this portfolio tells me that your years at Harvard were seriously misspent, my friend. Just as your dear mother feared.” Enjoying an after-dinner cigar, a brandy, and his friend’s company, all in the snug comfort of his study, Slade sorted through the sheaf of papers in his lap.

  When a knock sounded on the closed door, he shot a sly grin at the senator’s son seated across from him. “That must be Hammonds.”

  Dudley groaned, collapsing his large-boned body into his leather wing chair. “Not again, I beg you. Leave off with the man, Garrett. If dueling weren’t outlawed, I believe your poor butler would call you out. Still, should he, I intend to offer him—and not you—my services as his second.”

  “You wound me mortally, my inconstant friend.” He then bellowed out, “Yes? What is it?”

  The door opened and in stepped Hammonds.

  A bemused grin claimed Slade’s mouth when his butler wrinkled his nose at the smoky air. Slade laid Dudley’s papers aside, uncrossed his legs, and sat forward, flicking a long ash into a crystal vase not meant for such a purpose. Another groan issued from the red-haired Dudley.

  But from the thin-nostriled servant came a sniff of censure. It never ceased to amuse Slade that Hammonds, in his employ for the five years since he’d inherited this brownstone, still behaved as if Slade were a callous, messy intrusion into the neat and orderly world of his own domestics.

  “Well, Hammonds, what is it? Are you lonely for our company?” He pretended to reach for a book. “If so, allow me to read you a passage Mr. Ames and I found particularly amusing in Aldrich’s The Story of a Bad Boy. I borrowed it from Jacko and Edgar.”

  The very idea, him borrowing a children’s book from his newly hired housekeeper’s sons. But his words had the desired result, for Hammonds’s face was turning a satisfying red. “Perhaps later, sir. At the present, a … young lady at the door insists on seeing you. What shall I tell her?”

  “A young lady?” A wrench of emotion tore through Slade’s chest, squelching his humor. No, it couldn’t be her.

  “How’s that? A young lady? Here? Now?” Dudley snapped to attention, his hands gripping the chair’s arms. He furrowed his brow to match that of his frowning host. “I’m not sure I can name a proper young lady in all of Boston who would be at your door at this hour. Or any hour—without her mama and several armed men in escort.”

  “My thoughts exactly. So, this can only mean, my friend, that our luck has changed—and she’s not a proper young lady.” Slade snuffed out the cigar in the already maligned vase, rose to his feet, and swept his hand in a grand gesture at his butler. “By all means, show her in, Hammonds.”

  “Yes, Hammonds, by all means,” Dudley seconded, rubbing his overly large hands together in glee.

  Staring straight ahead, and pinching his features into alarming primness, Hammonds
didn’t move. He clearly had no intention of doing any such foolish thing.

  First exchanging a pointed look with Dudley, Slade then exhaled loudly as he turned to his butler and crossed his arms over his white-shirted chest. “All right, what’s wrong with her?”

  Hammonds cut his gaze over to his employer and then refocused on the portrait over the fireplace. Following suit, Slade and Dudley shifted their attention to the same painting. What was it about the long-dead Garrett ancestor pictured there, they often wondered aloud, that so captivated Hammonds? “I’m sure there’s nothing … wrong with her, sir. She’s just not … uh, how shall I say it?”

  Staring at his ancestor, just as Hammonds was, Slade asked the family likeness, “One of us, you mean?”

  “Quite, sir,” Hammonds agreed with the man in the oil painting.

  “But that’s exactly what we’re hoping.” Slade headed for the room’s open door, calling out to Dudley over his shoulder, “Will you excuse me?”

  “Not on your life.” Unabashed and eager, Dudley charged after him.

  Knowing from long experience that he’d never dissuade his friend, Slade strode down the narrow hall. Dudley’s booted steps marched in regimental cadence behind his. Past the darkened dining room and the parlor on their left, and then past the stairs on the right and into the tiled foyer.

  There, sighting their quarry, they stopped short, staring. Slade ignored the soaring bird that was his heart and forced himself into an attitude of nonchalance. Putting his hands to his waist, he turned to eye Dudley, and then pivoted to his unlikely visitor—the bedraggled Not-one-of-us, surrounded by her various luggage. “Somehow, I just knew it.”