by Maureen Lang
“Is there another place I can go where I won’t have to see anyone else?”
Kate nodded, leading back over the threshold, tray still in hand. She went to the opposite end of the hallway, around the hollow rotunda, to a small room where sunlight beckoned from a dazzlingly bright sunporch. It overlooked a considerable segment of the outlying countryside, past the trees surrounding the house, to the river beyond.
Settling the tray on a table between two comfortable chairs, the older woman invited Meg to sit as she stacked a couple of books out of the way. The tea was tepid but tasty. Meg couldn’t tell if it was hunger or if the food truly was exceptional, but she quickly ate the lobster salad and chicken pie. She would have preferred eating alone, but the woman lingered nearby, pushing open one of the windows—it was on a hinge like a miniature door—then peering out. After a while she withdrew a handkerchief from her sleeve, one Meg noticed was incongruously red.
Meg heard voices from below. Male voices again, somber. She couldn’t hear well enough to tell what they said, but it made her pause just the same.
“How well did you know my father?”
Kate dabbed one eye, then left the window for the seat nearest Meg. There were circles around her golden-brown eyes, and though her matching golden-brown hair was swept up in a chignon, it looked as though she hadn’t taken much care in the styling of it.
“We were to be married this week.”
“Oh!” Meg’s fork slipped from her hand, falling with a clatter to the porcelain plate in her lap. The news effectively killed what little appetite she had left. Meg put the remainder aside, letting it sit on the table between them. She lifted the teacup instead, because having her hands suddenly free only reminded her of her awkwardness. “Then you must be far more saddened by his death than I. You must also know that my father and I hardly knew one another.”
One of Kate’s arched brows rose. “I believe he knew you very well, Meggie. He loved you so much and was proud—”
Meg replaced the teacup with a clank and stood, taking the place Kate had left vacant at the open window. From here she could almost make out the conversation rather than just a deep-pitched rumble from below.
“If you think it’ll somehow make me feel better to hear such words, Miss . . . What did you say your name was? Miss Kate . . . ?”
“Katherine Kane, but please just call me Kate.”
Meg started to, but the friendly acknowledgment died before reaching her lips. “I barely knew my father, and I see no reason for you to pretend he knew anything about me.”
“But it’s no pretense!” Kate stood, approaching Meg. “He knew everything about you, Meggie. Simply everything! How you excelled at your studies from spelling to botany—imagine that, botany! I didn’t even know what it was until your father told me. He also knew that you couldn’t be beaten at tennis, and that when Lady White-Somerset-Stewart visited Madame Marisse from England and was asked to name a Harvest Princess, she chose you. Awarded to the girl who best combined all the qualities of a lady.” She pressed the red handkerchief to her nose, eyes closing momentarily before gazing at Meg once again. “He even attended several of your chamber music concerts at the school.”
To busy herself, Meg returned to her chair and took up the tea again. She didn’t want to believe Kate, but how could she not? Why would she lie, and how else could she know about some of those things?
“He attended my concerts? But he never, ever came to see me—”
“Did you or did you not find a yellow rose in your viola case after several performances?”
“Left by Madame or one of the staff . . .” A secret admirer had been her most fervent wish. But her father? Impossible.
Meg set aside the tea again. “If my father attended my concerts, why did he never want to see me? Or talk to me? Only one thing has ever been clear to me: he didn’t want me. He chose a surrogate son instead.”
“Nothing could be further from the truth.”
The statement came from behind them—and from a distinctly male voice. Ian Maguire moved around to stand directly in front of Meg’s chair.
“Your father loved nothing more than he loved you. Everything he did, he did for you.”
Meg raised half-veiled eyes to him. “And that’s why he lived here with you rather than me. Why he left me to be raised in a school.”
“Not just any school!” Kate insisted. “Madame Marisse’s is one of the finest schools in New England. Anyone schooled there has achieved the pinnacle of society’s training.”
Meg stared down at her hands, folded firmly—desperately—in her lap. If her fingers didn’t cling to each other, she was sure they’d be trembling.
“Look at yourself, Meggie,” Maguire added, his voice little more than a whisper. “You’re a lady, just as your father hoped you would become.”
She would have stood again, but Maguire hovered so close to her chair that to rise would mean brushing up against him or at least touching him in order to push him away. So she stayed seated, hands clasped even more tightly. “I won’t deny my father provided well for me. But loved me? Hardly. Having kept spies around me all my life doesn’t speak of love so much as a desire for proof that he was getting his money’s worth for my education.”
“Oh, Meggie,” Kate sighed. “There are so many things about your father you don’t know. The things he did to provide so well for you—”
“What you need to know, Meggie,” Maguire cut in, “is that your father loved you. Take it from us, who knew him best.”
She smiled tightly. “That’s rather hard to believe, Mr. Maguire, given my father’s history with me—or lack thereof.”
“But you’re here,” Kate said. “Surely you mourn his passing?”
Meg held Kate’s gaze. “I came to see if I might like him better dead than alive. And I find I don’t, after all.”
Cruel words, especially spoken before two people who obviously did love him. But seeing this house, hearing them say her father was capable of loving someone, only made his absence from her life that much worse. So Meg didn’t regret her words, even as Kate’s eyes widened in horror and Maguire’s brows gathered in concern.
“There is something you should know,” Kate said.
“Yes.” Maguire spoke, though Kate appeared to have wanted to continue. “Your father’s greatest hope was that once you finished school, you would be happy to remain there until choosing to marry one of the young men you met through the school’s social events. He hoped your life at school would have provided the foundation you needed for a proper, happy life.”
Return to school. Return to school. It was all she ever heard!
Suddenly the next step in her future became startlingly clear. What reason did she have to return to school? To spend another summer with the Hibbit sisters and reduced staff? No other student lived there year-round, the way Meg had ever since she could remember. Even if Meg’s future remained the same as it had been two days ago, even if she eventually joined the staff at Madame Marisse’s the way she’d always expected to, there was absolutely no reason to hurry back.
“I’m sure you do have your choice of suitors,” Maguire went on.
“Without a family to present me properly? I don’t think you understand the circle that frequents Madame’s.” Meg looked past Maguire and Kate, her gaze taking in the sunporch and, beyond, the view outside again. There was no reason she couldn’t spend the summer here. It was her father’s home; therefore she had some right to it. Didn’t she? “Pedigree is nearly as important as money.” As she spoke, her mind formulated plans having nothing to do with the conversation. “Sometimes it doesn’t have to be an old pedigree, but one’s family mustn’t be a mystery.”
“Madame Marisse assured your father there were eligible gentlemen vying for your attention, even two years ago—”
This time Meg herself interrupted Kate. “There is no reason to begin that future immediately. No one is waiting for me, and I have no wish for anyone in p
articular to be waiting for me.”
“But that’s where your life is, Meggie,” Maguire said in that same soft, somehow disconcertingly gentle voice. “Everything you know is there. Where else could you possibly go?” He bent over her and slipped his hand under her elbow to help her rise. “I can see you’re feeling better, so you might want to visit your father again. After that I’ll take you to the train myself and accompany you back to the school. Because—” his dark-blue gaze held hers—“that’s what your father would have wanted, and it’s my desire to do exactly as he would have regarding you.”
She stood but pulled her arm from his light grasp. “While I would appreciate it if you’d take me back to my father’s side, I must tell you I have no intention of returning to Connecticut today. At the moment my plans are indefinite.” Coward! Why hadn’t she told them what she meant to do?
Their astonished stares nearly made her stomp her foot, demand to know why she should do anything they wished. She was eighteen years old and could go where she wished. And what was so outrageous in wanting to spend time in her father’s home, anyway? To be in her father’s life—even if he was no longer here? Especially since he wasn’t here to say no?
“Listen to me, Meggie.” Maguire leaned toward her, once again too close. “I can’t let you leave without knowing exactly where you intend to go.”
She stepped around him, not caring that her shoulder brushed his in order to get to the door. “You have nothing to worry over, Mr. Maguire. I intend staying right here in my father’s house. It must be mine now, anyway.”
6
It was important to me that my lawyer—and through him, the jury—knew I was not just a thief. I was every bit a gentleman as well.
Alexander “The Gent” DiBattista
Incarcerated for fraud and bank robbery
Code of Thieves, compiled from interviews of temporary residents of Tombs Prison, New York City, 1873-1875
“Meggie!”
The entreaty came from Kate, but it was Ian who caught up with Meggie first, in only two long strides. At that moment he wasn’t sure if he felt admiration or exasperation. Irritation, at least. Meggie was the prize of John’s heart, the symbol of everything fine and worthy and precious. Here was someone to be protected at any cost—protected from the harshness of life. From the truth.
But as much as he might have unwittingly wanted her here, she was turning out to be a nuisance. She’d become the beautiful young woman he’d once dreamed she would be, with eyes he was sure were even bluer than John’s and hair as dark as licorice. But she shouldn’t be here. She should have stayed in Connecticut, being a good little girl at school, learning all she needed to know so she might one day become the grand lady with a respectable future John had always envisioned.
He should tell her the truth, at least some of it. He knew Kate would if he didn’t. He stood in front of Meggie, effectively blocking her path.
“This house isn’t your father’s, Meggie. It’s mine.”
Meggie looked at him, brows now raised over those two blue pools. She looked from him to Kate, then back again with something he’d never expected to see in her eyes. Suspicion.
“Yours? Entirely?”
He nodded and saw that Kate did the same. For once, he and Kate seemed to be united.
“Did he . . . leave it to you, then? Instead of to me?”
Kate took one of Meggie’s hands, something Ian wished he’d thought to do first. “Ian bought this house nearly a year ago. Your father lived in the city, with me.”
“How . . . convenient,” Meggie whispered. Then she took in a breath, her petite shoulders rising as if in determination not to change her ridiculous plans. “I’ll go to the city, then, at least for a few days. I’d like to see where he lived.”
She looked uncertain, and Ian thought that a good sign. Perhaps she wasn’t nearly as determined as he’d feared. Besides, so long as Kate didn’t invite Meggie into the dregs of John’s life, she would never be the wiser to how he’d lived.
“New York isn’t the place for you, Meggie,” Ian said. “Your father would have preferred you to stay in the clean country air of Connecticut. At school.”
He took Meggie’s arm again, this time looping it through the crook of his, relieved when she didn’t resist him. He’d dreamed often enough of having her beside him, and for the moment he intended to enjoy it. He even put one of his hands over her soft one, as if the one that rested beneath his was there by her design rather than his own.
Her skin was as inviting as he had imagined it to be. Ian had always known she would be beautiful—he’d known since she was nine years old that she’d grow up to be lovely. But when she was older and he and John had secretly attended several of her chamber music concerts, he’d gotten a good look at just how beautiful she’d grown to be.
It had been John’s idea to leave a yellow rose backstage, but it had been Ian who’d always left it for her. Inside the instrument case with her name on it, or in the little cubbyhole where it was stored, so he knew he’d left it somewhere she could find it.
Downstairs, Ian kept a close eye on Meggie as he delivered her once again to the ballroom, where her father was laid out. He and Kate waited with her until the room cleared—a new mourner had arrived whom Ian recognized instantly as one of Brewster’s younger brothers. Then Ian escorted Meggie closer while tipping his chin Kate’s way.
He knew she understood: leave Meggie alone, but make sure no one else interrupts. She walked from the room.
“Will you be all right, Meggie?” He used the same gentle tone he summoned when feeding meat to ill-trained guard dogs in order to slip past them. “I’ll stay if you like.”
She shook her head without looking at him, then left for the table upon which her father lay.
Ian wanted to stay but knew he shouldn’t. Not only for her sake, but also because of those waiting on the veranda. He followed the path Kate had taken a moment before.
Most of the mourners would miss the man they affectionately called Skipjack, but Ian also knew a number of them had already begun assessing things, before John’s body was either cold or buried. They were looking between Ian himself and Brewster, as if wondering which of them would take the role Skipjack had left vacant.
Ian was determined that man would be him, and it was none too soon to start making that clear. Letting Brewster take the reins of the men he’d worked with so many years would lead down a path Ian had no wish to travel. It had been John who restrained Brewster more than once, away from excess, from violence. Crime was one thing, John used to say, greed another. And while Ian couldn’t claim himself free of avarice, he’d never once been impressed by Brewster’s willingness to let force take the place of clever and careful planning.
In the hall, Kate stopped him.
“I’d like a word with you before you go outside.” Her voice was low but with a hint of urgency. Fine. He had a few things he wanted to say to her too. Things that probably couldn’t wait.
Chin high, eyes defiant, Kate stared at him a full moment as if in preamble to whatever she was about to say. “I want Meggie to come to the city with me, and I don’t want you to interfere.”
Ian looked over his shoulder to make sure the words hadn’t been overheard before taking one of Kate’s arms, nearly pushing her into the library. “Are you insane? The last thing John wanted was for Meggie to know about him, and if you think you can keep the truth from her and be a friend at the same time, you’re deluding yourself.”
Kate was already shaking her head. “You heard her, Ian! She doesn’t believe he loved her. Maybe the only way she will believe it is if we tell her the truth.”
“No! We’ll do it John’s way, the way he’s always handled his daughter. That was his decision, not ours.”
“But she must be told of the risks he took, the sacrifices he made—and his intention to make the best of his legitimate investments. As soon as he was able, he was going to invite her into his life, just as sh
e’s obviously always wanted.”
That was news to Ian. Not that John hadn’t hinted at going clean—his living here at Ian’s for the last few months before intending to marry Kate had been evidence enough of that. It had been a move that stirred unexpected thoughts in Ian’s own life—of his father and how he’d have wanted Ian to do the same had he still been alive.
But it didn’t matter. John hadn’t been allowed the time to prove his good intentions, and all that was left was evidence of the kind of man he’d always been. The kind not good enough to be a lady’s father.
The kind of man Ian was too.
“It’s out of the question,” he said. “I won’t have it.”
“You won’t! Who do you think you are, anyway? Have you assigned yourself John’s role before he’s even buried?”
Ian put his face directly before Kate’s, reveling in the moment when doubt took the place of her anger. “It’s me or Brewster. And you don’t want him telling everyone what to do, do you?”
Her eyes narrowed and her mouth tightened, the intimidation he’d stirred a moment ago quickly fading. “He won’t be telling me what to do, nor will you. John was hanging up the Skipjack name; you know it as well as I do. It was the Skipjack way of life that killed him.”
“A way of life you were happy enough to live for more years than I have.”
“To my everlasting regret, yes. And to John’s, too. He was going straight, Ian. You can’t deny it.”
“Going, perhaps, but never gone.”
Kate’s face softened, and now it was her turn to lean forward. “It can’t possibly do any harm for her to know. She already thinks badly of him. It can only help.”
“No. She goes back to the school. I’ll see to that myself. Today.”
Then he turned his back on her, walking from the room with only one destination in mind. As much as he wanted to return to Meggie, he knew he couldn’t ignore much longer those who stood on the porch. Even now, Brewster was no doubt campaigning for the confidence of men Ian couldn’t afford to lose.
