Though This Be Madness

by Penny Richards

  Something told her he’d called her by the dreaded name on purpose, and at the moment, she was in no position to call him out over it. She gritted her teeth and swallowed her ire and her pride. “I admit that I didn’t think things through, and I promise not to do anything like that again. I’ll discuss any ideas I have with you and share anything I hear that may be important.”

  “Prettily said, but do ya mean it?”

  “Of course I do!” she snapped, meeting his reservations with irritation. “I know I have a lot to learn, but I’ve always been the impulsive sort and have a tendency to act before I think.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” he snapped.

  She drew in a deep breath. “I . . . I know that even though you are a man and have more experience, you have no intention of undermining my work in any way. From here on out, I’ll share everything with you, and I expect the same courtesy. The thing is, McShane, sooner or later, I intend to make it on my own.”

  “Oh, I’ve no doubt of it.” He regarded her for long seconds. “Of course I’ll reciprocate. I have been.”

  There was no sound in the room for a few moments while he spread his bed onto the floor. Then he turned suddenly and regarded her with his hands on his hips.

  “For the record, I like a woman with ambition and guts, so long as she doesn’t forget she’s a woman.” He gave a slow shake of his head. “It would be a real shame if that happened to you, Lilly Long. Maybe one day you’ll tell me who it was who made you so bitter toward men.”

  Forget she was a woman? What did that mean? She was not likely to forget that, since it was that very fact that had motivated her to spend the rest of her life trying to help other women. As for what man had made her so bitter . . . it would take a list to enumerate them, starting with those who had paraded through her mother’s bedroom and ending with Timothy.

  “And maybe one day you’ll tell me about the circumstances that led you to meet up with Robbie.”

  He offered her a cynical smile. “Possible but doubtful.” He tossed a pillow onto the floor. “By the way, he said to tell you thank you for fixing the clothes.”

  Lilly’s first thought was surprise that the boy had mentioned it. That was progress, wasn’t it? “You spoke to him?”

  “I . . . was with him and Bernard earlier.” He shot her a derisive smile. “I went to talk to him about how he’s liking it here . . . that sort of thing. Robbie asked me to tell Bernard about grogochs.”

  “Grogochs. Isn’t that what you called him that day on the boat just before he’d had a bath and a haircut?”

  “Aye, I’ve always called him that.”

  “And what is a grogoch, exactly?”

  “Basically, he’s a fairy who looks like an old man, but untidy and covered with hair. They’re the most companionable of all the fairies and sometimes attach themselves to one person.”

  “The way Robbie has to you.”

  Lilly was fascinated by the tale, but even more interested by the fact that Cade had taken the time to check on the boy to see how he was faring. To all intents and purposes he had tucked him in for the night. Was he taking his responsibility for the child more seriously?

  Cade shrugged. “They can go for long periods without rest or food, and are said to be invisible.” This time his smile was reminiscent of the boxer’s cocky grin. “If that isn’t Robbie, I don’t know what is. I’ve never seen anyone who can get into the places he goes and never be seen.”

  There was no arguing that. “And you believe in fairies.”

  It was as much a statement as a question.

  Cade smiled again. “I’m Irish, aren’t I?”

  * * *

  Lilly placed her book on the small table next to the bed and blew out the light.

  Cade undressed in the darkness and stretched out on his makeshift bed. What he wouldn’t give to spend a night on a nice soft feather tick!

  Folding his hands beneath his head, he stared into the darkness and listened to Lilly roll and toss. He hoped she was strangling on guilt for going behind his back and setting up something that had the potential to destroy their whole operation. On the other hand, she was pretty clever for coming up with the idea.

  She was the proverbial thorn in his side. And having Robbie around was just one more thing he had to think about when he should be focused on the assignment, but there was nothing he could do about either complication, so he’d have to make the best of it. So far, Robbie hadn’t slipped anything of value into his pocket and set the whole house into an uproar.

  That, he supposed, was progress.

  CHAPTER 12

  Despite the fact that Amos drove Henri somewhere almost every night to gamble and Cade followed in the old wagon, they’d learned nothing except that Henri was a terrible card player.

  Housebound by their daily chores, there was no opportunity to look at legal records that might tell them something about the doctor’s past, and so far there had been no word from William about the validity of Henri’s medical schooling. Lilly was beginning to think they would never make any headway in finding out whether or not Patricia was sane, or if her husband was perpetrating some elaborate scheme to gain the Fontenot fortune.

  On Thursday, two days after their visit to the asylum, Bernard came to breakfast and announced that Robbie was gone and that most of the radishes had been pulled up. Lilly could have cared less about the radishes, but she went tearing up the stairs to the room the boys shared, as if her arrival would somehow make him magically appear.

  Robbie’s top blanket was rumpled, but the covers had not been pulled back for sleep, which hinted at the possibility that he had intended to leave the moment Bernard fell asleep. Where had he gone? she wondered, gazing around the room. The same sort of panic she’d felt when Tim abandoned her coiled inside her like a rattler about to strike. She felt it ease somewhat when she saw that Robbie’s meager belongings were still in the room.

  With Bernard following, she ran down the stairs and out to the stables, where she found Cade and Amos mucking out the stalls. The odor of manure and horse assaulted her when she stepped from the bright spring morning into the dim shadows of the barn. Dust motes dappled the sunlight slanting through the cracks between the boards. She paused, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the semidarkness.

  “Ca—” In the nick of time, she stopped herself from using Cade’s name and ruining everything. “Bran!” she called, aware of the alarm in her voice.

  He stepped out of one of the stalls, and before she realized her intent, she threw herself at him. His arms closed around her without hesitation, and her distress eased immediately. He would know what to do. He was used to dealing with the boy and his peculiar ways.

  Cade untangled her arms from around his neck and held her at arm’s length. “What is it?”

  “Robbie’s gone.”

  “What do you mean, gone?” Cade circled her wrist with his fingers and drew her back outside, where they could have some privacy from Amos’s sharp ears.

  Lilly told him about Bernard’s discovery and confirmed that Robbie was nowhere to be found, adding that it didn’t look as if he’d slept in his bed, but his things were all there. “Where do you suppose he’s gone?”

  “Heaven only knows,” Cade said, rubbing a splayed hand back and forth through his hair. “I imagine he had some notion that came to mind and went to see what he could find out without telling me. The two of you have that in common.” The statement held a note of irony, but she heard no rancor in his tone.

  “What should we do?”

  He shrugged. “Nothing. He’ll come back when he’s good and ready.”

  Lilly recalled the terrifying night she’d spent searching for Timothy in Chicago, where people disappeared by the dozens. From what she’d seen of New Orleans, it wasn’t any different. “Aren’t you worried about him?”

  “Of course I’m worried about him,” Cade said, his irritation making a comeback. “But he’s tough and he knows the streets,
and he’s the best at slipping around without anyone noticing. He does this sort of thing all the time. He’ll be fine, and he’ll be back. Go on inside and we’ll just sit tight awhile before we start worrying too much.”

  Lilly nodded, unconvinced. Her shoulders slumped in despair, she headed back to the house.

  * * *

  “Everything all right?” Amos’s disembodied voice echoed through the shadows of the barn when Cade went back inside.

  “Not exactly. Robbie’s run off.”

  “Shouldn’t we go look for him?”

  “No,” Cade said. “It’s not the first time. Ever since Ma died, and he came to be with me and Brona, he gets a notion to be by himself,” he fibbed. “He’ll be back.”

  Amos appeared in the stall doorway. “He’s pretty young to be roamin’ the streets all by hisself.”

  Cade sighed. “I know. If he isn’t back by dark, we’ll go looking for him.”

  * * *

  Robbie returned around suppertime, his usual swagger in place and whistling some jaunty tune. The relief that rushed through Lilly left her weak in the knees. Her first thought was to throttle him.

  Cade and Amos, who were just coming in to eat, saw him headed toward the kitchen. Cade stopped where he was, his hands on his hips, his head cocked to the side as he contemplated how to handle the matter.

  “Where on earth have you been, Robert Sullivan?” Lilly cried. “We’ve been worried sick.”

  He just gave her one of his looks and turned toward Cade, who motioned for him to join him near the barn. Robbie lost some of his bluster, but headed after Cade. Not wanting to miss anything, Lilly followed.

  When they stopped in front of him, Cade asked, “Where’ve you been?”

  “Went to the asylum, didn’t I?”

  “The asylum? Why on earth would you do something like that all by yourself?” Lilly asked.

  “I got tired of waitin’ for you and McShane to figure out something.”

  Cade sighed. “I’m sorry we’re not working fast enough to suit you, but these things take time,” he said in a sarcastic tone. “Sometimes more time than we’d like. Did you find out anything useful?”

  “I saw the missus, I did.”

  “Mrs. Ducharme?”

  “Aye, Patricia. We had a nice little chat.”

  “How did you manage that?” Lilly asked, amazed. “How on earth did you sneak in without anyone seeing you and tossing you out? What did she say?” Lilly spat the questions out in rapid fire.

  Robbie pinned her with a withering look. “Patience, Brona, patience. These things take time, ya know.” He shot a smile at Cade. “So, when I got there, I went around back in a sort of yard, and I saw this old man walkin’ around the fence. He was a right mess. Dirty and slobberin’ and such. Told me he was the watchman.” He rolled his eyes heavenward. “Crazy as a bessie bug, he was. When I saw he couldn’t hardly talk, I went lookin’ fer the kitchen help. Sold ’em some radishes.”

  Lilly fixed him with a narrow-eyed gaze. “So that’s where the missing radishes went.”

  “I had to have some reason to talk to them, didn’t I, and I made a bit o’ change, too.”

  Lilly shook her head in dismay. Now was not the time to tackle the issue of it being dishonest to sell things that had been stolen.

  “One of the ladies working in the herb garden said everyone got to go outside for a while on nice days, so I just looked busy and waited until they brought her out.” Almost as an afterthought, he added, “She likes outside.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because she turned her face up to the sun and smiled. She’s terrible pale and scrawny,” he added. “I think she was having a hard time staying awake. She sounded a bit tipsy.”

  Lilly had thought as much the day they’d snuck into the common room. She looked at Cade.

  “Medication,” he told her. “What did the two of you talk about?” he asked the boy.

  Robbie paused and looked from one to the other of his keepers. “I gave her a little bouquet of flowers I picked from some gardens along the way, and she thanked me and told me I was delightful.” He grimaced at that.

  “What else?”

  “Well, she said she had two daughters, but that they were all grown up and one of them died, and that she’d had a baby boy, but he died, too. She got really sad fer a bit and I thought she was goin’ to cry, but then she asked me if I knew that flowers and plants had special meanings. I didn’t know anything about that. What was she talking about, McShane?”

  “Rosemary for remembrance,” Cade said thoughtfully. When Lilly gave him a questioning look, he offered, “One of my sisters is a bit of a healer and knows a great deal about plant properties, especially those that can be used for medicinal purposes. Just about every plant represents some feeling or emotion. There’s a whole language of flowers the English used in their courting.”

  Once again, Lilly was surprised and impressed by his knowledge.

  “Yeah, that’s what she was telling me, but I didn’t know what she was talking about.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No, one of the men watching over them saw me and knew I wasn’t supposed to be there, so I lit out over the fence.”

  “That’s my boy,” Cade said, grinning and riffling the boy’s hair. Lilly glared at him. How would she ever teach Robbie to be an upstanding young man if Cade continued to encourage him in his wayward behavior?

  * * *

  On Friday evening, Cade came into the room freshly bathed, shaved, and wearing clean clothes. After spending so much time with him, she should have been familiar with the little hitch in her breathing whenever he walked into a room, but the sight of him in his brown twill trousers and white collarless shirt set her heart to racing nonetheless. Which made her furious.

  “I’m going out for a while.”

  She ached to ask him where he was going and if he was leaving to attend to something related to the case or for personal reasons. If it were the latter, it was none of her concern. Who was she to question his comings and goings?

  “Are you taking Robbie with you?” Even though she’d told him letting the child tag along was a bad idea, she found herself hoping he was.

  “I’m not planning on it.” He looked into the small mirror and raked a hand through his damp hair, trying to scrape an unruly lock into place.

  “Good.”

  Satisfied that he was presentable, he turned to her with his usual frown. “I won’t be late.”

  And with that, he left her standing in the middle of the room, feeling more miserable than she had since finding out her husband was a liar and a cheat and an adulterer.

  * * *

  Cade paused outside the doors of the drinking establishment, the fourth he’d visited in as many hours. He was waiting for Robbie to catch up. “I hope you know that Lilly will skin you alive if she finds out you followed me here.”

  “Ain’t none a her business, now, is it?” the boy asked in a cranky tone.

  “Believe it or not, she cares what happens to you.”

  “I’m not lookin’ fer pity.”

  “And she isn’t lookin’ for your sass. You might try being nicer to her.”

  “I might. Do ya think he’s gonna be here?”

  Cade had explained that he hoped to find the gambler who’d fleeced Henri and see if he could possibly learn more about the doctor’s habits. All he had was a vague description of a young, good-looking man with dark hair who dressed a bit dandified.

  “You stay out of the way and watch for anything that doesn’t look right,” Cade ordered. Robbie gave a little salute and then slipped inside the bar to some unobtrusive corner, where he could see and not be seen.

  Cade found a group of laborers and one merchant type playing poker and joined the game. He wondered which, if any, of these players was the double-dealer. They played for perhaps an hour without anything untoward happening. Then one of the gents said he’d best head home or his wife would lo
ck him out of the bedroom.

  He had just gathered his winnings when another man sauntered up to the table. He was taller than Cade, but slender, and too pretty to be a man in Cade’s estimation. His smile was as artificial as the diamond stickpin in his cravat.

  “Tim Warner,” the man said, shaking hands all around. Friendly and jovial though he seemed, Cade was not inclined to like the newcomer. The fellow’s grasp was as limp as a shirt with too little starch, and Cade had a theory about men and their handshakes. In his mind, this fancy man’s grip said much about what he was not. His gut, which was seldom wrong, told him he’d found his swindler.

  They were into the third hand when he knew he was right. This might not be the man who’d taken Henri’s cash, but he was no casual player. Warner bet larger sums than were comfortable for the others, and more often than not won the hand. Like his flaccid handshake, his nonchalance and indifference to the consternation of the other players spoke volumes about his character. It was official. Cade did not like him.

  They played another hand. Seeing the frown on one player’s face and the drops of perspiration on another’s, there was no doubt that the friendly poker game had taken a turn for the worse. Finding himself tight on funds after a couple of losses, Cade, who’d been sitting next to the newcomer, had dropped out of the game earlier.

  During a break where more drinks were dispensed, one of the girls whispered to Cade that he was wanted outside. Thanking her, he excused himself and stepped onto the street, wondering who was looking for him.

  “Psst.” Robbie stood in the shadows to Cade’s right.

  “What is it?”

  “I been watchin’ the game. Don’t exactly have a ringside seat, and I wouldn’t bet my life on it, mind you, but I’d keep an eye on the peacock in the saffron vest if I was you. I don’t like the looks of him. He’s too slick by far, and I’ll wager he’s got one up his sleeve or something of that nature.” He gave a slight shrug. “He acts like a crook.”

  Cade stifled a smile. Took one to know one, he supposed. “I’ll do that.” He threw a harmless punch toward the boy, who dodged it easily. “Now get on out of here. Go home and get some sleep.”