My Heart Belongs in Niagara Falls, New York

by Barratt, Amanda;

  But what of the payment promised him after the stunt’s completion? What would Conway do? He’d had a note delivered to the man’s house earlier that morning and had yet to receive a reply.

  Drew wasn’t a man given to anger. Since boyhood, the hardships of life had been a matter of course, met head-on, tackled and dealt with.

  But why this? He’d been close, so very close. Such dreams he’d spun over these past weeks, dreams beautiful in their promise. The first real taste of promise he’d known in years. His whole life. He’d complete the stunt successfully, race home to Hope. As soon as could be arranged, they’d move from this rat hole of an apartment. He’d contact the best doctors. Hope would have an operation, and he’d, maybe, watch his sister walk again. He’d get a decent job in a better part of town, with Franklin Conway as a reference, sealing the deal. There would be money for occasional luxuries. Enough to give Hope a proper wedding once she met a man to cherish her. Enough to…perhaps, think of finding a wife of his own one day. Someone to share life with once Hope had moved away. A baby or two.

  Now, none of it would happen.

  The enormity of it…of this loss was enough to make him want to pummel the dirt in anger. Anything to release the boiling inside. Out of all the problems he’d figured could go wrong, his body was the one element he’d relied upon. He was strong. Scrappy. Had to be, as a scavenging street kid in the slums of Buffalo and as a wiry circus performer in a world of fierce competition.

  It had failed him. He’d snapped. Literally. Like a dead branch, useful at one time, now good for nothing except winter kindling. Of course he’d recover. But it wouldn’t be soon enough. Right now, that meager hope didn’t do much to sustain.

  But he was still alive. Unlike Tony Linley, the very man he’d rushed in to save.

  He’d failed there too. The fight had spread with a fury that rivaled a raging wildfire and he’d lost sight of Tony. The doctor had been the one to tell him how Tony died, neck broken and body trampled in the midst of the brawl.

  What an hour of losses it had been. Simply because one man had become embroiled in something bigger than he could handle. Now, Adele had lost a brother and, until Conway arrived, Drew couldn’t be sure just what he’d lost. Except the ability to do practically anything for himself.

  When had Adele found out? Did she blame him? He wouldn’t fault her if she did. She’d depended on him, and he hadn’t fulfilled. He’d failed her, failed Hope, and the enormity of his failings could make him wish he’d suffered the same fate as Tony. At least then he wouldn’t have to face the future and all it entailed.

  But no. That was the way of a coward, something he hadn’t ever been and wouldn’t start being now. What had happened was over, done with, and no matter how much he worried or wished, it wouldn’t change the facts.

  Footsteps sounded in the apartment. Without warning, Franklin Conway opened the door and entered the bedroom. There had always been a contrast between them, never more so than now. Dressed in an immaculately tailored gray pinstripe suit, hair and mustache carefully groomed, a handkerchief peeking out from one pocket, the man and his prosperity galled Drew. What had Conway done to deserve his millions? His houses and yacht and carriages? Even his good health. While Drew was hard pressed to breathe without pain and Hope sat in the adjoining room tied to a blasted wheelchair.

  Unfair. And a bucket of water to his flame of trust in a God he believed was loving and good.

  “Sir.” Drew angled his face toward the man, wishing he’d the strength to adjust the lumpy pillow resting under his head.

  “Dawson.” Conway’s tone matched the definition of curt with dictionary precision. “Unfortunate turn of events.”

  You’re telling me. At least the half-grin that tugged on his lips only caused him a modicum of pain.

  “It is.”

  “But I’ve never been one to waste time bemoaning. Simply put, since the Gentleman Daredevil cannot perform, there will be a lot of people disappointed. Those I am most concerned with are our investors. Poor saps, throwing in on a failed scheme. I won’t have them disappointed, Dawson.” Conway tapped his silver-handled walking stick against the wood floor in a jarring staccato.

  “I’m not sure when I’ll be able to…that is, when I’ll be well enough…”

  “That’s not what I’m referring to.” Conway’s tone was impatiently brusque. “I’ve invested enough time into this circus spectacle, and I can’t afford to waste another moment. There won’t be another time. But, that being the case, this leaves me in considerable debt. Three thousand dollars, in fact.” Another series of beats on the floor.

  Mouth suddenly dry, Drew stared at the glass of water on the bedside table. His pride wouldn’t allow him to ask Conway to hand it to him, especially since the man’s expression held a foreboding look, as if something were coming. Something that would be lethal to the person to whom it was addressed.

  In this case, a man both worn out and broken. One who had taken the hand Conway had dealt him, a promised straight flush in sight.

  What the new hand was, Drew couldn’t yet be sure.

  Standing in the tiny, white-walled, one-window bedroom seemed to make Conway appear taller. At least, compared to lying-on-his-back Drew. “I’m a good man, Dawson. I understand the difficulties this will cause you. So I’m prepared to be generous. Half of the losses will be my responsibility. Bad luck of course, but that’s investment as well as life.”

  A surge of something hovering on the outskirts of hope had filled Drew’s chest with Conway’s first few sentences. Stupidly of course. For it had evaporated with the words “half of the losses.”

  “And the other half?” He’d probably regret asking the question.

  Conway didn’t pause. Didn’t flinch. “I will expect it paid in full by the first of the year.”

  Once, during outdoor recreation at the orphanage, Drew had come upon a group of boys clustered around a butterfly. One of the boys proceeded to rip each wing from the insect’s body, grinning as he did so. Even now, Drew still remembered that look. A chilling smile of delight, brought forth by the misfortune of a fellow creature.

  Mirrored in Conway’s expression as he stood beside the bed.

  “I’m sorry.” The words rang empty in the bedroom, bouncing off the too-thin walls and sounding tinny to his own ears.

  “No need to apologize. Just bring the money within the timeframe specified. Stay for tea when you come. It’ll be close to Christmas before you have the funds, I wager, and my cook does love to show off her homemade delicacies.” The gleeful smile became one of benevolence. A benevolence as false and cheap as the diamonds Adele wore, outwardly impressive to look at until one learned the truth about them.

  Drew had learned the truth about Franklin Conway over the two months they’d spent together. Not all at once but in particles and snippets. Yet it wasn’t until that moment he realized how little of a heart the man truly possessed.

  “I’ve never been one for sugary delicacies.” A venom that could sluice deep into his veins if he let it leeched into Drew’s words. Whether it would was something he wasn’t ready to decide right now, especially with Conway looking on.

  God forgive me.

  And for more than just that.

  “Suit yourself.” Conway pivoted, walking stick swinging, as if examining the bedroom with its sparse furnishings and peeling paper, the way one might examine a boudoir in the Fargo mansion. He turned back to Drew. “You do live in a dingy little set of rooms. And who’s the girl who let me in?”

  “My sister.” Obviously, experience wasn’t a very good teacher. Because another fight right now would’ve suited Drew just fine, had he been able to stand on his own two feet. There would be satisfaction in watching Conway bleeding on the ground. Deep, lasting, vindicating satisfaction.

  “Pretty little thing. Pity she’s an invalid.” Conway tsked. “A great pity.”

  “Does that conclude our business?” He ground out the words, the ache pulsa
ting in his jaw matching the one in his skull.

  “It does.” Probably realizing that in his current state, Drew didn’t pose much of a threat, Conway seemed unfazed. “And I wish you the best of luck, Dawson.” He held out a hand, one with manicured nails and fingers that hadn’t seen a decent day’s hard labor.

  Drew ignored the gesture. “Get out, Conway.” There was no need to call the man sir or mister. And it slaked a bit of the anger inside to address the man as he rightly deserved.

  Conway’s eyes darkened. “I’d have thought you’d be more grateful, Dawson. After all, we live in a world where generosity is rare. Best grab hold of it when you can.”

  “I know exactly what I owe to you. And you will have it. As for generosity, a pack of hungry wolves has more of that than your lot.”

  A vein popped in Conway’s neck, his eyes bulging like a bullfrog’s. Drew watched, curious to see if the man’s diamond stickpin would follow suit. Common sense wrestled against his revulsion. Probably it would be best to wait until free of all dealings with the man, before riling him any more.

  Walking stick clattering to the floor, Conway leaned over the bed, so close that Drew could smell the cologne on the man’s clothes and the bacon on his breath. “You’d best have that money.” The words came out low, measured. Deadly. “I don’t fancy the phrase ‘or else,’ but there will be one. Our lot may be a pack of hungry wolves, but a hungry wolf always has the advantage over a lone sheep.”

  Not once had she wept. Not during the ride back to the Osbourne’s in her hired cab. Not through the interminable hours afterward as she stared up at the ceiling, sheets in a tangle, waiting for dawn to break, mind screaming with the terrible, unutterable truth that she’d killed her own brother. Not when she’d given the news to her aunt and uncle the next morning and sent a telegram to her mother. Not even when she’d arranged for Tony’s body to be shipped back to England and buried in the family plot. Somehow, it would be easier if she cried. Though tears were painful, their absence was even more so.

  But she couldn’t. They wouldn’t come and, for now, Adele wouldn’t press them.

  Her dress of jet silk swept the stair treads as she descended downward. Last night had passed much the same, her eyes boring holes into the ceiling above her bed, nightdress stifling against her clammy skin. The fabric of her mourning gown swathed her from neck to toes and even at this early morning hour, a trail of perspiration dribbled between her shoulder blades. Late June had to be the worst month for donning black.

  Her aunt and uncle emerged from the dining room, just as Adele’s foot landed on the marble tile of the entrance hall. Their expressions matched the color of her dress, somber and dark, Uncle Osbourne’s particularly so.

  Aunt Osbourne also wore jet, a pair of matching earrings swaying from her ears and a thick beaded necklace roping her lace-covered neck. Some people took every excuse to deck themselves out in new finery.

  “You’re down early,” Adele commented. Usually no Osbourne graced the world with their presence until after 9:00 a.m.

  “Arnold.” Aunt Osbourne nudged her husband.

  Uncle Osbourne’s shoulders stooped, his mustache drooping.

  “Arnold!” The woman’s tone increased in decibel. They looked for all the world like a pair of crows, one thin and beady-eyed, the other looking as if he wished only to flap his wings and fly away from his cawing mate.

  Uncle Osbourne cleared his throat. “Ahem…yes. Would you mind stepping into the library, Adele? Your aunt and I would like a word with you.”

  “Of course.” Falling into step beside them, their footfalls the only sound, Adele bit her lip. What could the Osbournes have to say to her that merited rising an hour earlier than normal and summoning her to a conference in Uncle Osbourne’s sanctum? Never had Adele seen his wife enter the room full of books and masculine décor.

  Once inside, the Osbournes positioned themselves shoulder to shoulder in front of the fireplace. Body weary from lack of sleep and an ache brewing in her temples, Adele took a seat in one of the leather chairs.

  The clock above the mantel ticked off the seconds in a rhythmic cadence. The sameness of the sound might have lulled Adele, perhaps even into slumber. But one look at the Osbournes sent tension knotting through the back of her neck.

  “Go ahead, Arnold, we haven’t all day.” Aunt Osbourne pinned her husband with an impatient look.

  Go ahead and what? The tension in her neck traveled downward and landed in the pit of her stomach. Something was about to happen. And the suspense only drove the ache deeper into her skull.

  Slowly, Uncle Osbourne shook his head. “No, Elsie. I won’t do it. You may, if you wish, but I shan’t.” His chest lifted with a sigh as if he carried the troubles of the world upon his breast.

  “Very well. I’m not a coward.” Aunt Osbourne directed her narrowed gaze toward Adele. “It has been very pleasant, having you stay with us, dear Adele. And we’ve been more than happy to offer our hospitality.”

  “But what?” Because surely the Osbournes hadn’t called her in here to say how happy her visit had made them. Unless…But no. They wouldn’t be about to, weren’t cruel enough…

  “But both your uncle and I have decided we think it would be best for you to depart as soon as possible. Tomorrow, at the very latest. Surely your mother misses you, and you, her. Don’t you agree?” The woman’s smile radiated charm, her tone, compassion.

  Yet her eyes revealed what the other did not.

  They weren’t asking but demanding her to leave. A jolt shot through her sluggish mind. How had it come to this? And why?

  “I don’t understand.” If her world had been chipped before, it was crumbling now, like a set of ruins she’d once seen in Cornwall. A former castle on the coast, grand and beautiful, destroyed in the English Civil War. Since then, waves had buffeted the ruins, destroying the architecture a few stones at a time. Occasionally, a chunk of the wall collapsed, carried into the sea.

  A piece of her wall had been swept away as she crouched beside her brother’s body.

  And now another. Soon the entirety would collapse, leaving nothing but a desolate pile of rubble.

  “Tell her. She deserves to know the truth.” Uncle Osbourne’s voice filled with an authority that surprised Adele. Not once during her stay had the man raised his voice.

  “I…um…” Her aunt’s hand fluttered to finger the beads at her neck.

  “Tell her, Elsie! It was you who wanted this. Don’t expect me to dirty my hands on account of you.” Her uncle faced his wife, arms folded. His tone hadn’t lost its commanding edge but added a note of bitterness.

  All fluttering aside, Aunt Osbourne looked daggers at her husband.

  “Perhaps you ought to look at the paper, Adele,” her uncle said quietly. “Then you’ll see what my dear, and currently speechless, wife is trying to enunciate.”

  Silence fell, as stifling as the gown that draped her back. A footman was sent for, the paper brought. Adele reached for the thickly folded newspaper, held out on a silver salver by the footman’s white-gloved hand. Anything could be served up with elegance. Even calamity.

  She unfolded it and turned the pages. Scandal sprawled across the newsprint in boldface, black type. A story that detailed Tony Linley’s death as an Englishman killed in an American barroom brawl. The Osbourne family got plenty of mention, as did Adele. Detailing the former as a new money family with salty relations, herself as a moneygrub-bing English flirt.

  Who…? How…?

  “You will pay for every cent of damage that was done to me tonight. Even if I cannot bring that man back from the grave, I will exact that. And I will bring your name into a scandal so great, it will ruin you.”

  No one could accuse Caro Aubrey of going back on her word. Adele had dismissed the woman’s words as a threat made in the throes of grief. Obviously she hadn’t realized the sort of woman who’d uttered them.

  Shaking, Adele stood and crossed the room, placing the paper on a
side table. Aunt Osbourne eyed the newspaper, loathing streaming from her eyes.

  Adele returned to her seat. Numbness seemed to have taken over her limbs, and it was a wonder she managed to force them into the chair. If only the same lack of feeling could permeate her mind. Instead, a howling, like the rushing of a mournful gale, filled her brain, begging for release.

  “It’s been so lovely having you with us, my dear. You’ll send a telegram once you are safely back in England? We’d worry if you didn’t.” The syrup in her aunt’s words made bile rise in Adele’s throat. Sugarcoated civility held no weight when wielded in the hands of a viper.

  Adele didn’t even nod. “I’ll leave by evening’s end.” Her gaze found her uncle’s. Though silent apology filled his eyes, what did it matter when no action followed? Still, he’d shown her kindness during her stay here, in his own way. So for his sake, she added, “I’m sorry for the burden I’ve placed upon you both. I will make arrangements, so as not to trespass on your kindness any longer. But I do thank you for giving me a home here and am only sorry things had to end in such a way.” She stood and made an exit her mother would be proud of, her skirt trailing behind her like a pool of spilled ink.

  She closed the library door behind her and leaned against the wall. Her eyes slid shut. Now, not only would her brother return in a coffin, she was expected to follow. It would be easy to leave behind this country and board a ship back to a land where poverty was the only problem she faced. But she would be going without having accomplished any part of her plan, and things would certainly only be worse upon her return. Linley Park would be sold.

  Though after the past two days, even that suddenly seemed a thing that could be borne.

  With an effort, she opened her eyes and made her way into the entry hall. Delany opened the front door, admitting a visitor. Adele paused on the landing, waiting to see who it was.

  Franklin Conway handed his hat and stick to Delany. Then looked up, gaze meeting hers.