Deadly Pleasure

by Brenda Joyce

  “I would hardly know,” Francesca said, frowning now.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Everything.” She tried to smile at him and failed.

  “Is it Connie? At least you and mother have seen her. She’ll be fine, Fran,” he said, patting her knee with real affection. “By now she is home, and she and Neil have begun to patch things up.”

  Did he really think it would be so easy? Was she the only one who was worried about Connie? Francesca looked at him. “Spoken from a man with a mistress,” she could not help herself from murmuring.

  Evan had leaned forward. “Jennings, drop me up at the club, please, and then take Francesca home.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jennings replied, and the coach rolled forward.

  Evan turned to her. “Fran, I am not married yet. And Sarah Charming hardly loves me. I think she is afraid of me, if you wish to know the truth. She would not care if she knew about Grace Conway.”

  “You mistake her quiet manner for timidity and shyness. I did, too, at first.”

  He sighed. “Please, do not go on and on about the merits of Sarah Channing. Is that why you have waylaid me? I know you wish to speak with me. I can see it in your eyes.” He sighed again, more heavily. “I am prepared. Do your worst.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He folded his arms, regarding her. “I am expecting a lecture, about not breaking things off with a certain lady whom I am very fond of. I am sorry we shouted at one another last night, Fran. It is not your affair, but that did not excuse my temper. I blame my lapse on a rather improper amount of gin.”

  “You got soused. I’ve never seen you that way before,” Francesca said, and it was the truth.

  “It is simple. I am a man on his way to the gallows. Why not drown my sorrows?” He smiled at her, but it did not reach his blue eyes.

  Francesca hated seeing such sadness there. And she was angry with Andrew for not thinking of his son’s feelings, for refusing to even consider undoing the match. She smiled and brushed a stray lock of black hair from his eyes. “Evan, let’s call on Sarah tomorrow together,” Francesca said impulsively.

  “Let’s not.”

  “So now you dislike her? I refuse to believe that; you are too much a gentleman.”

  “I neither like her nor dislike her, but I saw her the other night. At the opera, remember? You were there. I was courteous and attentive and she, well, perhaps I had better not say.” He turned away, but not before she saw him grimace.

  “It’s important. Please,” Francesca cajoled. “You may feel differently about her when we are through.”

  “I might feel differently about her if she had an opinion and dared to utter it,” he said with real exasperation. “And have you noticed that she is reed-thin and as plain as a doorknob?”

  “She is petite. She has the most beautiful brown eyes I have ever seen. Her complexion is porcelain-perfect—”

  “Enough! If you think to convince me that she is pretty, you will not succeed. She is plain, Fran. Plain, plain, plain.” He scowled. “And I am being kind.”

  “I think you are determined to resist her.” It was a sudden insight, one that Francesca hoped was true. The brougham had halted before the imposing granite building that was the club. “I think you would resist any lady Papa brought to you for the purpose of marriage. Perhaps you are simply not ready to wed.”

  “How astute! Unfortunately, Papa is stone-deaf on this particular subject. The man dictates my entire future, like a tyrant, and will not heed one word I have said.” He turned a dark gaze on her. “Or that you have said, on my behalf, and I thank you again, for that.”

  Francesca had pleaded his case, in vain. She had been shocked by her father’s refusal to reconsider the union. “Let’s take this one step at a time. It is a long time until June. Much can happen between now and then. Why don’t we call on Sarah together, you and I?”

  “It is a long time until June!” he exclaimed, incredulous. “June is four months away!”

  “Are you panicking?” she asked with worry.

  “Wouldn’t you? If Mother had done this to you, if, say, Mr. Wily was to be your husband in June, wouldn’t you be in a panic?”

  She met his gaze and for the very first time she truly understood his plight. “I would not walk down the aisle,” she said simply.

  He grimaced. “But you would not then be thrown in debtor’s prison.”

  That was true. “Oh, Evan. Well, either you must fall in love with Sarah, or we must find a way out of this. I shall begin working on your dilemma immediately.”

  He smiled at her and kissed her forehead. “If this were not so dire, I would be frightened.”

  “Do not be afraid. I shall think this through very carefully, I promise you.”

  “The way you did with Connie?” He grinned and reached for the door.

  She ignored that. “Tomorrow afternoon at four?” Francesca asked. She would show him Sarah’s studio. Perhaps, when he saw his fiancée’s talent and when he saw her with fire in her eyes, his feelings would take a turn for the better. Surely it could not hurt. Meanwhile, she would do her best to come up with a plan, at least to postpone the nuptials.

  “Very well.” Evan was about to rise. Francesca restrained him.

  “Now what?” he asked, but not with any rancor.

  “Evan, something you said to me last night has truly been bothering me.”

  He searched her gaze, no longer smiling. “I was drunk.”

  She winced. “Yes, you were. And I do hope you are not intending to drown your sorrows tonight?”

  “No, of course not.”

  She hesitated again.

  “Spit it out, Fran. As I know that you will, sooner or later.”

  She crossed her arms. “Well, last week my understanding was that your debts were of a certain sum.” It was a sum she would never forget, for it was vast—impossible. Evan owed $133,000 in gaming debts.

  Evan’s eyes became hooded. “I do not think my debts are your concern, Fran.” His tone was even and he turned to leave.

  “Wait! But they are my concern! When you are my brother and I adore you! When Papa is forcing you to marry—”

  He cut her off. “He is blackmailing me. Let’s not mince words now.”

  She shivered, taken aback. But he was right, as much as she hated to admit it. In her heart, she still could not believe what Papa was doing. “You haven’t been gambling again, have you?”

  His face changed. It closed completely, and his eyes became cold. “I am late,” he said.

  Dismay flooded her. “Do you think to gamble to spite him now? Evan, what if we can raise the money to pay off your debts? Do not increase them!” she cried as he leaped out of the coach.

  He stared at her as he closed the door. “No one will lend me that kind of money.”

  “Perhaps not. But how do we know if we do not try?” she cried.

  He shoved his hands in his pockets and stared.

  Francesca realized that she was perspiring. “Stay away from the tables. Gaming will not solve anything.” He did not move and he did not speak. “And Papa has asked me to speak to you. He says you have ignored him.” She waited anxiously for his response.

  It was a bitter laugh. “What a coward he is,” he said. “Do not bring me any messages from him. And I have not ignored him, Fran; I have cut him out of my life—and my heart.”

  “Evan!” she cried, aghast. But he was walking away. Francesca unlatched the window, opened it, and poked her head out. “You do not mean that! Papa loves you, just as I know you love him!”

  Evan faced her, walking backward. “Love? Like hell he loves me, because if he did, he would not force me to marry some homely little spinster that no man would ever look at twice, a woman whom I find completely boring, a woman whom I shall have to tolerate for the rest of my life. As far as I am concerned, he has lost his rights as my father. I do not have a father, Fran.” He turned on his heel and strode up the wide granite step
s of the Metropolitan Club, where two liveried doormen immediately let him in.

  Francesca realized her eyes had filled with tears. She rapped on the partition and said, “Jennings, I will go home now.”

  Monday, February 3, 1902—11:45 A.M.

  The old stone church was on the corner of Lexington Avenue and 58th Street. Francesca stepped down from her cab as several mourners entered the eighteenth-century Presbyterian church, their faces suitably somber, heads down. Francesca paused, clutching her purse, just outside of the entrance. She had read that Paul Randall’s funeral service was to take place that day at noon, followed by a burial just north of the city in a popular Yonkers cemetery. She had skipped her eleven o’clock biology class in order to attend the church service. Her every instinct had told her that she must not miss the funeral, even though one of her teachers had warned her that she had been absent far too frequently last month.

  Sleuthing and the pursuit of a higher education did not, apparently, go hand in hand.

  Carriages and taxis continued to pause at the curb to discharge their passengers. Lexington Avenue remained both busy and noisy, mostly because of a series of passing electric trolleys, each one on the heels of another. Francesca was about to go inside when she saw a gleaming cream-colored motorcar rolling to a stop beside a parked carriage, clearly double-parking. It was a Daimler, and there was no mistaking the driver.

  The engine died and Bragg got out of the car, his dark brown overcoat left open and swinging about him. As he strode toward her with his agile yet purposeful stride, her heart skidded. He was devastating in appearance this morning, oh, yes. His tawny good looks were just so unusual, so striking.

  He had seen her and he smiled, crossing over to the sidewalk carefully, behind the carriage. “Good morning,” he said, his regard somehow far too intent. Or was it intimate?

  She couldn’t help herself; in spite of how dire he had sounded last night, she smiled happily, pleased to see him, to be with him. “Great minds think alike,” she said lightly and breathlessly.

  “Indeed they do.” His gaze moved over her face. “I received a telegram this morning.”

  Francesca became alert. “From Philadelphia?”

  “Do you read minds? Or only mine?” he said teasingly.

  She smiled and waited for him to share with her whatever the telegram had contained.

  “Bill Randall has a roommate on campus. Alistair Farlane states the last time he saw Bill was Thursday morning. If Bill was in Philadelphia Friday night, as he has claimed, he did not sleep in his college dormitory, or at least, not in his room.”

  “So I was right,” Francesca breathed, watching another taxi pausing at the curb. A woman was inside. “Bill is our intruder.”

  “It looks that way.” Bragg turned. A buxom woman alighted to the street, but she was not Georgette de Labouche.

  Their eyes met. “I was hoping she might show up,” Francesca confessed.

  “I doubt that she will. Any leads?”

  She hesitated. “One. I will let you know if it comes to anything.”

  “I would hope so.” He began to smile at her, his gaze soft, and then he glanced sharply aside. But Francesca had also seen the Randall family alighting from a taxi at the exact same time.

  Bill Randall was on the curb, helping his mother out of the hansom. In the broad light of day, his face seemed pale and angular, his lanky body far more than slender. In fact, he had a tired and worn, if not sallow, look about him. Was he worried? Overtired? Or merely in the throes of anguish? And why had he lied about when he had arrived in the city—if he did not have something to hide?

  “Careful, Mother,” he said. “There is melting slush all about.”

  “Thank you, dear,” Henrietta returned weakly, clinging to him as she eased her plump bulk onto the sidewalk. She wore a dark coat, beneath which was a black ensemble, and a black hat with several roses and a half-veil. Francesca tried to discern her state of mind, but it was hard to see through the veil. She clutched a wadded-up handkerchief in one hand, which she kept pressing to her eyes, beneath the veil. Clearly she was still distraught.

  “Mary? It’s slippery,” Bill warned, after leaving his mother on the curb.

  Francesca saw Mary posed to alight from the hansom, a too-thin figure in a too-big beige coat, her pinched white face ravaged from days of crying. Her eyes remained red and swollen, as did her nose, in general doing little to aid her in her appearance. She was wearing a hat, sans veil, but her hair seemed unkempt beneath it, shiny tendrils escaping this way and that. She was clutching a faded brown velvet purse almost compulsively.

  Francesca felt a pressure on her arm. She glanced at Bragg. He met her gaze and they moved over to Henrietta, who was, for the moment, standing alone.

  “Mrs. Randall?” Bragg said softly. “We have come to pay our respects.”

  She choked on a sob and looked up at them, and as quickly away. “Commissioner Bragg,” she gasped, surprised. “Oh, I did not expect you....” She glanced up again, briefly, this time at Francesca. “And Miss Cahill,” she breathed. Her gloved fist found her mouth as she fought more sobs.

  “We are very sorry,” Francesca said, deeply disturbed. She quickly slid off her gloves and clasped the woman’s hands, which remained gloved. “If there is anything we can do,” she added, encouraging the woman to meet her gaze.

  “No, no, thank you,” she murmured, and she refused to look up.

  Francesca glanced up at Bragg and met his eyes. His expression was wry; he knew exactly what she was up to, she thought.

  “We appreciate the offer,” Bill Randall said tersely, taking Henrietta’s arm and looping it tightly and possessively in his. “Hello, Commissioner. Miss Cahill. Have you found the killer?” His tone was high.

  Francesca slipped her gloves back on. Mary was standing beside them. Her eyes were wide, intense, and even angry. “I have heard of no arrests!” she exclaimed.

  “There have been no arrests, but we are working round-the-clock on this one,” Bragg said calmly. “We shall find our man.”

  “But you know who murdered our father!” Mary cried, pointing her finger at Bragg. It was shaking.

  “Actually, I do not,” Bragg said. He nodded politely, as if to leave.

  Francesca’s insides tightened as she saw Hart climbing out of the most elegant, and by far the largest, coach that had stopped on the block. He was stunning, as always, in a coal black suit and coat. Like Bragg, he wore no hat.

  “Perhaps it is time for you to recuse yourself from the investigation,” Bill Randall said stiffly. “Have you read today’s editorial in the Times, Commissioner?”

  “I’m afraid not, and if the need arises, you may be sure that I will recuse myself. Shall we go in?” Bragg asked, unperturbed. If he had seen Hart, he gave no sign. Still, Francesca knew he never missed a trick.

  Hart was studying them all as he approached. In fact, once he had seen them all, there was no question that he intended to greet them, instead of entering the church. Francesca felt her tension soar. Unquestionably, a scene was in the making.

  He met her gaze and winked.

  She felt like strangling him. Could he not go inside and behave himself?

  Bragg’s gaze had become strangely hooded, but Francesca knew he also watched Hart approaching, and she felt that he only pretended indifference. And at that moment Mary turned, saw Calder Hart, and cried out. “There he is! The murderer of our father!” she screamed shrilly.

  Hart laughed and paused before the group. Several mourners whirled on the steps of the church in order to gape. Francesca tried to catch his eye, so she could silently convey to him that he must leave the Randalls alone. But now he was not looking at her.

  “Henrietta,” he intoned, “my dear, dear ... what? Stepmother? I see you are incoherent with grief. And Billy. You have actually come home to bury your beloved father. And Mary. My sweet, innocent, adoring little sister. May I give one and all my deepest and most sincere regrets?” h
e asked, and he was laughing still.

  Henrietta sank into Bill’s arms, apparently in a dead faint.

  “Arrest him!” Mary shouted, stomping one foot. “Arrest this ... this despicable murdering bastard!”

  Hart laughed harder.

  Bragg turned cold eyes on him. “How clever,” he said.

  Hart shrugged. “I did my best.”

  “As usual,” Bragg murmured. “Are you happy now?”

  “Very.” Hart grinned.

  Francesca looked from the one to the other and realized that Bragg had expected Hart to show up at the service, in just such a provocative manner.

  Suddenly a small man in a suit and top hat was shoving a notepad in front of Mary’s face. “Would you swear in court that your half brother murdered your father, Miss Randall?” he demanded, prepared to scribble her response.

  Francesca groaned.

  “I most certainly would!” Mary cried, practically jumping up and down. “There is no doubt in my mind.”

  “That is slander, tsk-tsk. Play with fire and you shall get burned,” Hart said, clearly not alarmed.

  Francesca caught his eye. He was truly enjoying himself.

  “Someone help me get Mother inside,” Bill huffed, holding her up in his arms. Her head lolled to the side. And she had, of course, dropped her handkerchief.

  No one moved.

  Except Bragg, who had taken the notepad out of the man’s hands and now threw it in the street. “Get lost,” he said. “Before I take today’s Tribune and use it to render you speechless.”

  The reporter blanched and fled. And standing behind him was Arthur Kurland, the reprehensible reporter from the Sun.

  “Will someone, anyone, help me with Mother?” Bill asked heavily again.

  Hart chuckled and held out his arm to Francesca. “May I?”

  She shook her head no, and as she did so, she saw Henrietta slam closed one eye beneath the veil. Francesca froze as Bragg put his arm underneath the heavyset woman in order to help Bill. Henrietta Randall was pretending to swoon.

  When the woman was standing rather solidly, moaning and pretending to have regained consciousness, Bragg stepped aside.