by Jo Goodman
That was plain enough. "Then I won't ask where you're going." She picked up the paper and opened it, studiously ignoring Walker while he prepared to leave.
On the point of going, he inquired, "Shall I ask Mrs. Cavanaugh to take care of the broken mirror?"
Seven years' bad luck, she was thinking. "She's probably already asked one of the maids to see to it."
"Very well. You should consider packing some things. I don't intend that we should spend another night here."
She looked up from the newspaper. "Not spend another night here?" she asked. "But where—"
"We'll discuss it when I get back."
They certainly would. Her sharp glance told him as much.
Walker was unaffected. "I shouldn't be gone more than a few hours."
Skye stared at the paper again. The words blurred in front of her, but she gave every indication that she was immersed in her reading. It wasn't until the door closed that the first tear slipped past her lower lashes.
* * *
Walker's first order of business took him to the telegraph office at Broadway and 34th Street. He sent off a quick message to the station at Baileyboro for Parnell, mentioning the article that had appeared in the Chronicle. It would be enough to whet Parnell's interest and confirm in his mind that Walker was still in his employ. The brief message was the only communication Walker had had with Parnell since leaving Baileyboro. He could well imagine that his employer wasn't pleased about that. Parnell must have wondered what was taking so long.
Walker's second stop was the offices of the Chronicle. He had to wait almost an hour to see Logan Marshall, but he was in no particular hurry. He spent the time in the busy editing and copy room, observing the frenetic activity of the reporters and press men with interest and amusement. It didn't give him the time to dwell on the difficult morning he'd spent with Skye.
The meeting with Logan was brief, and Walker was able to gather more information about the exposition. The material for the story had been supplied by the sponsors of the event and Walker was given the name of one man in particular to contact.
Everything about Franklin Dover was large except for his voice. His proportions were perfectly suited to his six-foot-six frame, which made it all the more surprising that he was so soft spoken. One anticipated a voice that would echo in his barrel chest and bellow from his lungs. Instead, Walker found himself leaning forward in his chair, straining to hear what Mr. Dover had to say.
"You're quite right, of course," Dover said. "The initial plans for the exposition were made well over a year ago. The idea was to present something for scientists and inventors, a forum for discussion and consideration of new ideas."
"And the response?" Walker asked.
"Overwhelmingly favorable. We're expecting attendees from all over this country and possibly fifty or more from Europe." Franklin Dover sat back in his chair. He might have dwarfed it, but it had been specially made to support him. His dark side whiskers widened an already broad face. He stroked one side with his thumb, his expression thoughtful. "What's your interest in the exhibition?" he asked. "Do you have something you wish to enter?"
Walker shook his head. "No, nothing like that. I expect it would be too late anyway, wouldn't it?"
"The planning committee is still considering some items for inclusion. Only something very noteworthy could be added at this time. There is no altering the lecture series. After all, the exhibition is only a month away."
"Then the list of men scheduled to speak has been confirmed?"
He nodded. His large hands came together in front of him and formed a steeple. His index fingers tapped together. "That's right."
"Including Jonathan Parnell?"
"Everyone." His brows knit slightly. "Are you interested in his topic?"
Walker had introduced himself to Franklin Dover as representing John MacKenzie Worth's interests and those of Northeast Rail. Worth's name had appeared among those who were bankrolling the exhibition. The group of powerful and wealthy men were politely referred to as "contributors," but Walker recognized their concern was self-interest. They were moved to add their money to the kitty by an entrepreneurial gambling spirit, definitely not the same spirit with which they contributed to libraries and the arts. "Jay Mac is interested in Parnell's topic," he said, correcting the impression that the questions were entirely his own.
"As far as I know, Parnell plans to attend. At least, I haven't heard anything to the contrary."
"You've met Mr. Parnell?" asked Walker.
"No. He's something of a recluse. That's why we were pleased to have his confirmation. He must be very excited about his work and quite far along if he's prepared to share his advances." Dover's own excitement could not quite be contained. His pale blue eyes burned with a particular brightness. "I take it representatives from Northeast will be there."
Walker smiled faintly at the question Franklin Dover would not ask directly. "I think you can count on Jay Mac attending."
"That's very good indeed."
Levering out of his chair, Walker extended his hand to Dover. His fingers were engulfed immediately in the other man's large, powerful hand. "Jay Mac wondered if you might have a list of those planning to attend," he lied shamelessly.
"I'm sure I do." He hesitated. "But I'm not—"
"To conduct business," Walker explained. "Jay Mac is hoping to meet with certain individuals there."
Franklin Dover gave in easily. There couldn't be any harm in releasing the list. If it made Jay Mac happy, then there was something to be gained through cooperation. "I'll get it for you."
When Walker left he had a neatly copied list in his pocket. He presented it to Jay Mac at his office at the Worth Building. Jay Mac looked it over carefully, adjusting his spectacles several times during his slow perusal.
"What is it you want to know again?" he asked, lowering the paper a mere fraction so he could see Walker over the edge. "It's hard to see that anyone in industry's been left out."
Walker sighed. That was his first thought when he had seen the list. "I need to know which ones are most likely to have been interested in Parnell's work. Who'd have the most to gain?"
Jay Mac placed the list on top of his desk, then rooted through his middle drawer for a pen. He jabbed it in the inkwell and began checking off names. "Rockefeller. Vanderbilt. William Barnaby. Stanford. Fisk. Gould. Rushton Holiday." He glanced at Walker. "Perhaps you'd rather I checked who's not likely to be interested."
"No, sir; you're telling me what I need to know."
Jay Mac continued to work. He said casually, "My daughter suffered no ill effects from her bout of drinking?"
"Not after she was sick."
Jay Mac chuckled. "Serves her right. She was behaving badly, sullen and spoiled."
"She was lonely," Walker said. "Missing her sisters."
Pausing, Jay Mac looked up. "They would have been there if they could have."
"She knows that. As comfort, it went only so far."
"I see." He went back to work. "When are you going to tell her about you?"
"Tonight. I know I haven't been fair to her, but I'll tell her tonight. I have to return to Parnell's. I can't say what he's going to do about the exhibition. I should be there. I have to be there."
"Skye won't like that."
"I know." Even before the announcement in the paper, Walker had been thinking about returning to Baileyboro. He knew he was going to have to explain it to Skye. He wondered if she'd want to return with him or if she'd be glad to see him go. "We're going to take a room tonight at the St. Mark," he told Jay Mac.
Jay Mac nodded. "That's probably wise. You have to work things out for yourselves. Does Moira know?"
"I didn't see her this morning." It was an easier explanation than admitting he'd only just decided where he and Skye would go.
"I'll have a suite reserved for you," Jay Mac said. "A wedding gift."
"That's kind of you. We both appreciate it."
He h
eld up a hand as he slid the list across the desk to Walker. "Don't thank me yet. You could be sorry that Skye won't have anywhere to run."
"Skye's not a runner," Walker said. "I've learned that about her." He was surprised that Jay Mac didn't know his daughter better. "Damn the torpedoes. That's Skye."
Jay Mac considered Walker thoughtfully. "You're right," he said after a moment. "I was thinking of her sister. Maggie's gentle, more of a peacemaker... more like her mother. Skye's more..."
"Like you?"
Removing his spectacles, Jay Mac shook his head. "No," he said. "Not like me. Skye's like... Skye. All my daughters are unique, but I can see myself or Moira in each of them, except for Mary Schyler."
"She thinks the talent was tapped by the time it was her turn to be born."
Jay Mac's eyebrows rose. "She told you that?"
Walker nodded. "Almost her exact words." He picked up the list but didn't glance at the checked names. He folded it once and slipped it in his pocket. It was clear he had given Jay Mac something to think about. Now Walker decided to give him the time. "I may not see you this evening," he said. He tapped his pocket. "Thank you. You've been helpful." Jay Mac nodded absently. Walker showed himself to the door.
* * *
Skye had not packed anything. Walker knew he couldn't blame indecision for her lack of cooperation. What to pack wasn't the problem; taking orders was.
Walker found Skye in the library. She was alone, curled in a chair with a blanket over her legs. A heavy book rested partially in her lap and partially on the arm of the chair. Her feathered brows were furrowed in concentration. She was pulling a strand of hair through her lips as she read. The damp tip was dark. Walker stood just inside the door, watching her for several minutes before she sensed his presence.
"You're back," she said. Her tone was without inflection.
Walker thought she might actually go back to reading, but she slipped a leather marker in the book and put it on the table beside her. He recognized the book as the same one she'd been reading at Parnell's. "You took that from the Granville library." It wasn't an accusation, merely a comment.
Skye's guilty conscience made her answer a little defensively. "I plan to return it."
He almost offered to take it back with him, but the timing was wrong. "I've been to your room. I noticed you haven't packed anything."
She tucked the heavy plaid blanket about her legs. "There's nothing wrong with your powers of observation."
"Where's your mother?"
"She's gone to see Mary Francis. Why? Are you going to beat me?" She flinched as he raised his hand, although he only ran it through his hair. He looked as if he was seriously considering how to respond to her question. "I'm sorry," she said after a moment. "I shouldn't have said that."
Walker pushed away from the door and sat down opposite her. His eyes fell to the blanket. "Are you feeling well?"
"I'm fine. No lingering effects from last night. I was chilly, that's all."
He rose, briefly stoked the fire and added wood, then returned to his seat. "Better?"
Skye shrugged. "It was fine before," she said. "There was no need to—"
"Damn it, Skye! I'm not your enemy. Our marriage doesn't have to be a war. Even the simplest exchange is a battle with you, every glance is a skirmish."
She glanced at the clock. "And it's been just a little over twenty-four hours," she said drily. "Can you imagine years of this?"
"No," he said firmly.
Her smile held no warmth. "Neither can I." She got up and tossed Walker the blanket. "I'm going to pack now. I'll go wherever you'd like, Walker, and show you I can be compliant in my own fashion. You should know, however, that I don't intend to share a bed with you."
"You're a trifle late coming to that decision," he said. "It would have been more timely four days ago, when you showed up at the St. Mark wearing a gown and little else." He watched blood suffuse her pale complexion. "Still, I'm not averse to the idea myself." If anything, her color darkened with this announcement. Clearly she hadn't expected him to agree with her. She thought she had established battle lines that he couldn't ignore only to find he was willing to do just that. "We'll leave as soon as your mother returns. Jay Mac is reserving a suite for us at the St. Mark and knows not to expect us this evening."
Skye turned to go. "I might have known," she said, under her breath.
* * *
They didn't go immediately to the St. Mark. The hansom cab that Walker hired took them on a slow, meandering tour through Central Park. The pond was still frozen over and there were a few skaters taking advantage of the ice. Skye watched a couple making several graceful turns. The colors of the setting sun were captured in the ice beneath their feet. Bands of rose and orange and mauve and gold glinted on the surface and blended in a kind of winter rainbow.
Inside her muff, Skye's hands folded and tightened. She made no comment about anything she saw. Walker appeared not to expect one. The cab circled the pond slowly and more skaters gathered. Lanterns were lighted on the edge. Laughter rose from one of the benches where a mother had collected her young children and was preparing to launch them onto the ice.
The cab turned down a path she recognized instantly as the one she had taken on a certain fateful night. She hadn't heard Walker give the driver any special instructions, yet Skye couldn't believe the route was entirely accidental.
"This is where we first met," Walker said softly. He wasn't looking at the path. He was looking at Skye.
She had the oddest sensation that Walker was courting her. She could feel the intensity of his gaze and had to will herself to continue to look out the window. "I remember," she said. "There were two men chasing you that night." She refused to ask the question that hovered at the forefront of her thoughts. By Walker's own admission, he was better at keeping secrets than at sharing them. It was something he was going to have to change.
"Before I came to New York I was a—" Walker paused, searching for the right word. "I suppose you would call it a diplomatic aide." Skye had become very still and Walker knew he had her attention. "I was attached to our embassy in London. One of our officials at the embassy had gotten himself neck-deep in trouble and I was asked to extricate him."
Skye's head had tilted slightly to one side. She had removed her hands from her muff and now they lay still. She was no longer twisting her wedding band.
"He had involved himself with a married woman. The wife of a powerful member of the House of Lords, as it turned out. He gave her a ring, a family heirloom that was easily identifiable as his. When her husband found out about the affair, he didn't confront it openly either with his wife or with our embassy man. He began blackmailing them both."
In spite of Skye's best intentions, she heard herself ask, "His own wife?"
"His own wife," he repeated. "She had money in her own right, a fortune he was trying to tap. Our embassy man was similarly well connected but didn't want to pay. Neither of them knew it was her husband orchestrating the blackmail—he worked through intermediaries—but they knew the ring had been found and taken and was what the blackmailer was holding against them. I was directed to get it back."
He made it sound so ordinary, Skye thought, as if it were not beyond his usual duties. She wondered if that was true.
"It took some time," Walker continued, "but once I confirmed who was holding the lovers as financial hostages, finding the ring wasn't too difficult."
"What did you do?" She was looking at him now, her eyes searching his face.
"I stole it back," he said simply. "People don't expect you to do that sort of thing, so they don't plan for it. The husband wasn't aware he had been found out, and he hadn't taken any particular care to hide the ring. It was in a box in his safe with some other valuables. Getting it back was the easiest part of the assignment." He sighed, shrugging faintly. "Everything was handled very quietly, discreetly. No one wanted the episode brought to light. I suspect my part in it was discovered because of our
embassy man's gratitude. I think he recommended my work to someone he shouldn't have. It got back to his lordship, and he proved he could hold a grudge. His hired thugs have trailed me for months. I don't think he intends to kill me, but he certainly wants some kind of satisfaction for the difficulties I caused him."
"Difficulties you caused him?" she asked, surprised. "But you weren't the one having the affair!"
Walker's smile was faint. "True enough. But his lordship didn't care so much about the affair. He could tolerate his wife's indiscretion and probably had. He had a mistress himself in Mayfair. What he couldn't stand for was the interference in his scheme. In effect I killed the goose that laid the golden eggs."
"You said they've been after you for months. Then that evening in the park wasn't the first you met up with them?"
"No, not at all. It's never the same men. That makes it difficult for me to know that I've really lost them. There were three encounters before I left England What you witnessed was my second confrontation here in New York. No one's been able to track me to Baileyboro, it's only—"
"In the city that you're in danger," she finished for him. Her eyes were troubled. "Every day you're here is a risk."
Her concern warmed him, gave him hope, but he couldn't let her make too much of his situation. "It's not as dangerous as all that. They may have even given up."
"You can't know that."
She was right, of course. He couldn't know. "I'm not worried about it," he said. "And I didn't tell you so you could worry for me."
"Then why did you tell me?"
Walker didn't answer immediately. He wanted to lean over the space that separated them and take her hand. He wanted to kiss away the small crease between her brows and the downturned corners of her mouth. He did none of these things. "It's part of your life now," he said. "Because it's part of mine. You have a right to know these things."
"Sharing a secret with me," Skye said gravely, quietly, "is the same as keeping it to yourself. You could learn that in time, or you could just believe me now. Nothing you tell me is going to go anywhere else. Not ever."
