The Valiant Hearts Romance Collection

by Kristin Billerbeck

  Miss Morgan waved away his invitation with a sweep of her gloved hand and fixed her attention somewhere behind him. As she exhaled, she met his gaze with a direct look. Her dark brows furrowed.

  “Forgive me,” she said with excruciating care. “I am …” She paused and closed her eyes, then opened them slowly. Henry made the absurd observation that they were green and fringed with dark lashes.

  “Sir, I bear complete responsibility for the m–m–m–misprint. I assure you it was unintentional.”

  His heart sank, and so did he, landing in his chair with an unceremonious thud. “I assure you, Miss Morgan, that it is I who should be begging your forgiveness. My behavior was terribly and inexcusably rude.”

  The lady looked a bit perplexed. “I beg to differ, sir. You see I–I–I know a bit about the workings of a political campaign and a m–m–m–mistake of this magnitude that could cast aspersions on the candidate, well …” She paused and looked as if she’d spoken more than she intended.

  The lady knows about politics? Interesting.

  Henry let the silence fall thick between them, a lawyer’s courtroom trick designed to cause the other party to speak rather than bear the quiet. It didn’t work. Instead Miss Morgan turned on her heels and walked out without so much as a word of good-bye.

  He sat for a very long time, pondering the situation and going over each word of their conversation. Somewhere his plan to apologize had gotten derailed, but he hadn’t the slightest idea how to get it back on track.

  The rest of the morning passed slowly with work done in fits and starts. Finally, when the clock in the anteroom rang the noon hour, he donned his coat and hat and stuffed what he could of the work on his desk into his valise. If he couldn’t force his ability to concentrate into submission at his desk, perhaps he could tackle the job on the long walk home and be of some good to his clients after a proper lunch. Mother would be happy with his decision to work the afternoon away in his study rather than return to the office.

  The better to drag him off to the opera or some dreadfully boring dinner all the sooner.

  Henry smiled, took the back stairs two at a time, and emerged into the alley. As the door closed behind him, he realized he’d left his revolver locked in his desk drawer. He pulled on the knob. Locked tight.

  Casting a glance up at the second-floor window of his office suite, Henry contemplated his choices. He could go around the block to reenter the building through the front door, or he could forget all about retrieving the revolver today. Opting for the latter, he turned to head east toward home. At Coromundel Street, he briefly considered a side trip to the Gazette. What would he say to her? Worse, how would he handle a casual appearance at the paper when his last visit had been anything but polite?

  To be certain, apologies had been exchanged, but Henry still felt something had been left unsaid, some deed undone. If only he could ascertain just what that was.

  At Baker Street, he veered to the right and began the steep climb toward its intersection with Decatur Avenue. “Thank You, Lord, for cooler temperatures today.”

  “You ought to be thanking the Lord that him and me don’t shoot you dead right here on the street.”

  Henry whirled around to find himself face-to-face with two masked thugs pointing revolvers at him. The tallest of the pair, a man with more scars than teeth, lowered his weapon to wrench away the valise. The other one pressed his gun against Henry’s forehead.

  As Henry watched the man rifle through legal papers and court documents, he waited for his opportunity to use his own gun on the petty thieves. The gun he had left back in his office. His heart sank.

  “There ain’t nothin’ in there worth takin’.” Toothless tossed the valise at Henry’s feet, and several documents slid into the street. A particularly important writ landed unceremoniously in a puddle alongside the silver pen his mother had given him when he graduated from law school.

  “Just shoot him and get it over with,” Shorty said.

  Get it over with.

  No. Not today. Squaring his shoulders, Henry prepared to use the only weapon he had left—his fists. Toothless leaned in close and narrowed his eyes. Shorty pulled back on the trigger with a loud click.

  Henry refused to allow fear to cloud his thinking. If this was how God planned for him to go to heaven, then so be it. If not, then all the better. He’d take them both at once if he had to.

  The tall fellow poked at Henry’s chest with his free hand. “Funny, you don’t look like a man who don’t pay his debts.” Toothless stood so near that his rancid breath blew toward him in waves. “So me and him are gonna give you a chance to pay up.”

  “Pay up?” Henry searched his mind for the identity of the thugs. Had he represented one of them before? Worse, had he prosecuted them? “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Not the most brilliant statement but a decent stall nonetheless.

  Shorty giggled. His gaze shifted from Henry to Toothless, and he giggled again. His fingers never moved, and neither did the gun.

  “Look, fellows, whoever this interloper is that you seek, I assure you it is not I.” Henry notched up his smile and focused on Toothless, whom he’d decided was the leader of the pair. “I’m not without resources.” He paused a moment to let the idea sink in, all the while deciding where on the thug’s body to aim his first punch. “So what do say you on this? Put those guns away, and we’ll discuss this like gentlemen. Perhaps I can lead you to the person you seek.”

  “Gentlemen?” Toothless snorted. “That’s a funny one. It truly is.” His eyes narrowed. “Gentlemen don’t forget when they owe somebody, though, do they?”

  “My point exactly.” Henry’s left hand itched to connect with the criminal’s jaw. “I assure you I’ve not forgotten any debts,” he said as he waited for just the right moment.

  “Maybe we oughta help him remember.” Shorty’s forefinger danced inches away from the trigger, which from Henry’s perspective looked enormous. “You got paid for something, and you didn’t deliver. Now you gotta pay that money back.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Toothless leaned closer. “Maybe you should ask your—”

  “Hello? Mr. Hill, is that you?”

  Henry tore his attention from the gun to the approaching pedestrian and groaned. The lady wore yellow and carried a folded newspaper under her arm.

  “She a friend of yours?” Toothless leered at Helen, and Henry fought the urge to capture the thug’s attention with his fists. With Miss Morgan so close, however, he could hardly risk the possibility of her being robbed by the hooligans as well—or worse, being shot.

  “A friend?” He shook his head. “Hardly. The woman has caused me nothing but grief.”

  Helen slowed her pace and clutched the paper to her chest. It was warm, but the heat she felt on her face didn’t come from the temperature or the steep climb up Baker Avenue.

  Mr. Hill’s companions whirled about and snapped to attention, hands behind their backs. An interesting pair, those two, and nothing like the fellows she expected the politician to keep company with. Perhaps they were clients.

  The taller one wore a dark coat that seemed absurdly heavy for the temperate weather, while the other, a short man with a thin patch of sandy hair and what seemed to be a perpetual grin, dressed in a more conservative suit befitting a professional of some sort. Only his shoes seemed out of place, rough work boots more fit for the field than the city.

  Helen returned her attention to the politician, who looked ready to bolt and run at any moment. Of course, he was a busy man, and she’d taken up far too much of his time today.

  “Forgive me for intruding once again,” she said, “b—b—but Mr. Madison asked that I deliver this personally.”

  “No intrusion at all, miss.” The short one widened his grin. “In fact, it’s a right pleasure.”

  Henry Hill said nothing.

  Her gaze landed on the overturned valise and the documents spil
ling into the street. The taller of the strangers must have noticed, for he stuffed something into the pocket of his coat, then quickly reached to right the briefcase and stuffed muddy papers inside. He handed the briefcase back to Mr. Hill, and the pair exchanged a terse look. “We’ll be in touch,” she heard the tall one say.

  Perhaps these were clients with whom Mr. Hill was upset. There certainly seemed to be no camaraderie among them.

  Whatever the situation, none of the three men looked particularly happy to see her. Of the three, Mr. Hill seemed to be the most bothered by her presence. Truly he looked more piqued than he had this morning at the paper. Perhaps she shouldn’t have greeted the politician or interrupted what looked to be a street-side business meeting. It was behavior of the most daring caliber, at least for her.

  Still, Mr. Madison had selected her to deliver a copy of this afternoon’s special edition of the Gazette to Mr. Hill immediately. Considering the magnitude of her mistake, a bit more humiliation was nothing.

  She took a few more halting steps and thrust the paper in Mr. Hill’s direction. He stared at her hand as if it were a foreign object. Finally he lifted his gaze to meet hers. The irritation on his face hadn’t reached his eyes. No, something else lay there. Was she mistaken, or did he flash a warning with those dark eyes?

  “I—i—it’s this afternoon’s special edition,” she finally said before stabbing the newspaper toward him. “I’ll not b–b–bother you further.”

  His curt nod served as an answer. Helen did not linger. Instead she walked back to the Gazette at a brisk pace, all the while praying this encounter with Henry Hill would be her last.

  She cast a quick glance over her shoulder as she turned onto Freedman’s Street and saw that the three gentlemen had already parted ways. The strange pair was headed south at a brisk pace, but Mr. Hill still stood where she’d left him, one hand shading his eyes from the noonday sun and the other on his hip.

  He was staring in her direction.

  Chapter 5

  Monday, July 9, 1860

  Henry spent most of Saturday and Sunday thinking about not thinking about Helen Morgan. It was absurd, this feeling he had that somehow he had not seen the last of the timid woman. He breathed deep of the musty air and dropped his valise on his desk. “Ridiculous.”

  With the retraction satisfactorily printed in Friday’s special edition of the Gazette and an update regarding the search for tavern owner Henry Hall as this morning’s headline, it seemed as though Henry’s tarnished image had been repaired.

  “What’s ridiculous?”

  Henry reached for his revolver and laid aim before he could blink. When he saw Asa Chambers in his sights, he put away his gun and gave his friend a hearty slap on the back. At nearly his height, Asa wore his weight across his shoulders and in arms that belonged on a boxer rather than a lawyer.

  He punched one of those beefy arms for good measure. “You scared the life out of me, Asa.”

  “And almost out of me.” Asa took the punch with good-natured grace, then leaned against the edge of Henry’s desk.

  “How’d the speech go?”

  Henry shrugged. “Fine, I suppose. The crowd seemed to applaud in all the right places, although I did skip around a bit.”

  His friend leaned back in the chair and fixed his gaze on the window behind Henry. “I suppose you’re wondering why I’m back in San Francisco before the end of the month.”

  Henry settled into his chair and steepled his hands. “The thought had occurred to me.”

  Asa plopped down in a chair across from the desk and closed his eyes. His fingers drummed a rhythm on his knees, and his foot pounded a restless accompaniment. Since childhood, or at least from the age of eight, when Henry had first been introduced to his best friend, Asa Chambers had been in motion. To stop moving meant he’d fallen asleep.

  “Too much to do back here,” he said slowly. “And absolutely nothing worthwhile to do up there.”

  “Translated, my friend, that means what?”

  He opened his eyes. “That means I couldn’t spend another minute up there when you needed me here to help with your campaign.”

  “That’s the sorriest excuse I’ve ever heard.” Henry chuckled. “I can’t believe your father let you go.”

  “Well, actually, he thinks I’m on an extended fishing trip.” Asa slowed his drumming long enough to study his nails. “I figure that will buy me at least two weeks here in the city.” He gave Henry a sideways look. “What? We are fishing for votes, aren’t we?”

  “Excuse me, sirs,” a small voice called. “There be a note for you.”

  Henry rose to follow the voice, only to find the lobby vacant. He darted into the hall to find it empty as well. A single sheet of white paper, folded in half, crunched beneath his feet, and Henry bent to retrieve it.

  “Who was that?” Asa called from his perch in Henry’s office.

  “Don’t know,” Henry said. “But he left this.”

  He settled into his chair and opened the note. Pay your debt, or Miss Morgan will pay for you, it said in an elegant script. As befitting a missive from a coward, the note bore no signature.

  Interesting.

  Henry threw the chair back and stormed to the door, ignoring his hat and coat. Friday he thought he’d convinced the thugs that they’d gone after the wrong man. Further, he’d convinced himself he’d been the random victim of street hoodlums and nothing more. Obviously he’d underestimated the thugs. To cast aspersions on his good name was one thing, but to threaten an innocent woman was quite another.

  Asa followed him out into the hall. “Where are you going?”

  “To the chief of police. This has gone far enough.”

  An hour later, standing outside the chief’s office with Asa, Henry tried not to let his anger show. While the chief had given the impression of being appropriately disturbed by the letter, he’d all but laughed off Henry’s concern for Miss Morgan’s safety and ignored Asa’s concerns altogether.

  The chief put off the note and the message on the handkerchief to political jealousy at the least and political trickery at worst. He promised to investigate but made the statement with little enthusiasm. His parting words had been to leave the worrying to the police department.

  While logic told Henry he should do as the policeman suggested and let law enforcement handle the problem, intuition told him he should at least warn Miss Morgan of the possible danger. An informed person generally took fewer risks.

  A bell sounded in the distance, signaling a packet boat’s arrival in the harbor. Overhead a pair of seabirds circled, their calls punctuating the dull roar of carriages and horse traffic on busy Coromundel Street.

  “Well,” Asa said, “what do you intend to do now?”

  Henry inhaled the pungent odor of horses and the sea and shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

  Asa took him by the arm and darted across Coromundel Street. “Forget about the woman. You’ve got an office to win, and I’ve only got two weeks to help you win it. What say you to a meeting of the minds back at the office? I’ve got some ideas for winning this election that I’d like to go over with you.”

  Shaking off his friend’s grip, Henry turned away and headed for the offices of the Gazette two blocks away. “Later,” he called to Asa as he rounded the corner. “I’ve got something more important to attend to first.”

  Outside the newspaper building, Henry froze. His encounters with Miss Morgan, although surprisingly frequent, had not been particularly pleasant. To be blunt, the cause lay with him, and he knew it.

  Perhaps he’d better take a different tack on this visit. He stared at his reflection in the window and caught himself frowning. Immediately he pasted on a smile and strode inside. He would be pleasant, state his concern for the lady, and be on his way. The less attention paid to his visit, the better, and his duty to a fellow citizen would be done.

  The elderly woman behind the counter was not Miss Morgan. A setback, albeit a minor one, he dec
ided as he upped his smile a notch and tipped his hat. “Is Miss Morgan about?” he inquired. “I’d like a moment with her, please.”

  With a nod, the woman scurried away in a whirl of skirts and crinolines, nearly knocking over a stool in her haste. A moment later she returned with another young woman. “Miss Morgan’s been sent on an errand,” the petite blond said. “Perhaps you’d prefer to wait here.”

  Henry cast a glance behind her and saw a gaggle of young women, three to be factual, staring at him and whispering. One smiled while the other two nodded. The blond turned and gave them a look that sent them all scampering back to their work.

  “Ah, no, actually I’m wondering if perhaps you could give me an idea of where Miss Morgan’s errands might take her. It might be more convenient to find her rather than to wait here.” He stared pointedly at the women, who whirled about and went back to their work. “I wouldn’t want to be a bother.”

  Moments later, Henry was heading toward the harbor, where he’d been told Miss Morgan had been sent to retrieve bundles of newspapers and other parcels sent from back East. He spied the object of his concern wearing blue and making her way across the uneven boards of the sidewalk, a small army of urchins following in her wake. Each carried something—a box or a paper-wrapped package or some other container. Miss Morgan marched ahead, whistling, of all things. Her hat bobbed as she walked, and a blue ribbon bounced and fluttered in the breeze.

  Rather than disturb the little parade, Henry stuck to the shadows and watched as the motley group made its way down the other side of the street. Occasionally, Miss Morgan would stop and offer a handkerchief to one or a smile to another. When the party turned the corner and disappeared, Henry picked his way across the muddy street and hugged the buildings to keep out of sight.

  At Freedman’s Street, he froze. Just across the way he saw a familiar face. Toothless. As Miss Morgan’s group headed north, so did he. When they made an abrupt turn to the east, he did the same.

  A block away from the Gazette, Henry saw the glint of what appeared to be a pistol in Toothless’s hand. “You there,” he called as he pushed past a pair of matrons and an elderly coachman to barge into the busy street. Toothless glanced in his direction, but Henry couldn’t tell if he’d actually heard Henry’s cry. Too much traffic and noise separated them. When Henry made his way past carriages and horses to reach the other side, Toothless was gone.