The Widow's Secret

by Sara Mitchell

  “If anyone should have a guilty conscience, it would be yourself, for prying into innocent lives.”

  “Usually my prying reveals a depressing lack of innocence.”

  Beneath the freckles her skin paled, and she turned her head aside. “I beg your pardon. You’re right, of course.” He watched as one by one she separated her fingers, focusing on the task as though her life depended on it.

  Feeling like a heavy-fisted clod, Micah sat back with a sigh. “I like your home,” he announced abruptly. “Though it’s a home without a man inhabiting it. No spittoons, no masculine-size gloves or top hats or canes on the hall tree, no lingering odor of tobacco in the air, no photographs on your piano. You purchased it three years ago, and listed your status as widowed.”

  “Again, you’ve made your point, Operative MacKenzie. Yes, I am a widow. What of it?” The tremble in her voice leaked through her stillness; she continued to stare fixedly at the line of silk tassels fringing the drapery that covered the top of her piano. “I should have covered every inch of that wretched piano with photographs,” she murmured. “But…I’ve never mustered the courage. I can’t face the memories, and photographs serve no purpose other than to remind me of everything I’ve lost. And now…” She stopped, swallowed several times.

  “I understand,” Micah told her, gentling his voice. “It’s difficult, isn’t it, losing your spouse at so young an age.”

  “I will not discuss my husband’s death. Ever.”

  “Death, not deaths? So you’ve been married only the one time, then?”

  Chapter Three

  The lump in Jocelyn’s throat swelled until she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to breathe, much less speak. This man was too quick for her, too intelligent. “Yes,” she finally managed, once again picking her way through half truths. “I…I reverted to my family name, after he died.” She took quick breath that allowed her to finish, “I told you I will not discuss the matter.”

  “I’m not asking you to. Yet.” He’d been carrying a leather satchel, and now placed it on his lap. “One of the reasons I’m here today is to ask about Benny Foggarty. I have witnesses who signed affidavits that, after entering the store, he crowded next to you and Mr. Fishburn while you were standing up front, talking with Mr. Hepplewhite.” He withdrew a much-handled photograph and passed it to Jocelyn. “Was it this man?”

  With a concentrated effort of will she managed to keep her hands from shaking as she took the small rectangular cardboard and pretended to study its unforgettable likeness of the man who had probably ruined what was left of her life. “Yes.” She passed her tongue around her lips to moisten them. “He made a comment about my watch.” Instinctively, her hand cupped it. She could feel her heart frantically thudding beneath the soft linen of her shirtwaist.

  “I can see why. It’s a beautiful piece. A gift from your late husband?”

  “My father.” Pressure built inside her chest, crowding its way up her tightening throat. “He gave it to me on my sixteenth birthday. I’ve worn it ever since.” Until she’d had to take it to Clocks & Watches to be repaired.

  Life was unfair, Chadwick used to remind her. Either learn how to duck—or close your eyes and let it pummel you into dust.

  “My father gave me a watch once,” Operative MacKenzie said. “I’m afraid I was more entranced with its internal workings than keeping track of time. By the end of the evening, watch innards were scattered all over the table. I put it back together, but it never did keep good time.” He smiled at her, uncapping the charm as though it were a potent elixir. “Made a perfect excuse to be late for chores or other loathsome tasks I didn’t want to do.”

  She was too fatalistic to believe she possessed the strength of will to continue her resistance much longer, not when Operative MacKenzie treated her with a quixotic blend of gallantry and steely determination. Somehow that knowledge helped ease the pressure in her chest a bit. She wondered if condemned prisoners looked with the same tremulous longing upon their executioners.

  Jocelyn Tremayne, you are a weak and foolish woman. Postponing the inevitable, she asked, “How old were you?”

  “Twelve. So Benny commented on your brooch watch?”

  She nodded. “Then the gentleman at the counter made some rude comment, and—you said his name was Benny? Benny left. After I paid for the repairs, I did, too. And before you ask, I’ve not seen him since.”

  When was telling the truth a lie? At what point had she become so adept at it that she could sit in her parlor and not tell an operative of the United States government that she had, albeit without her consent, become a receiver of stolen goods?

  “Hmm. I believe you, Mrs. Tremayne.” Then he added, “About that, at least. It’s a good thing your father gave you a brooch watch. They’re more difficult to pinch.”

  Tell him. Give him the incriminating evidence and be done with it. Why not get it over with? Her thoughts spun in a maddening tornado of lurid visions of her fate, with chain gangs and rat-infested dungeons tilting her toward mental paralysis.

  She opened her mouth to confess. “If Benny’s nothing but a thief, why are you chasing him?” dribbled out of her mouth instead.

  Perhaps she was a lost soul after all, beyond hope of redemption.

  Operative MacKenzie sat back in the chair, his finger returning to trace the line of his clean-shaven jaw while he studied Jocelyn. Unable to stop herself, she stared back. He was tall; even when seated he dominated the room, with those clever gray eyes and thick tawny-brown hair whose prosaic color she envied with all her heart. As before, he was dressed in a gentleman’s day wear: gray-striped trousers that matched his eyes, and a double-breasted waistcoat under his black woolen frock coat—a thoroughly masculine man comfortable enough to make himself at home in her fussy, feminine parlor.

  This man was going to arrest her—and she was gazing at him as though he were her savior instead of her executioner.

  But from the instant they’d met the previous afternoon, something about him had quickened feelings inside her that she thought were as dead and cold as her marriage. His deep voice washed over her, and she drifted in the currents, savoring the fleeting connection.

  If only she could pray for strength, and be equally soothed by the assurance of a response.

  “We don’t usually chase after thieves,” he was informing her, “unless they also print money from counterfeited engraved steel plates. Benny Foggarty’s one of the best engravers in the business. He’s also a gifted forger, taking photographs of bills, then touching them up with pen and ink. For the past nine months Benny’s been…ah…helping…me track down the principals in a notorious gang of counterfeiters. If we can’t put the ringleaders out of business, last year’s financial woes will look like a picnic in comparison.”

  He paused, but when Jocelyn did not respond he shrugged, adding softly, “Life can be complicated. You’re an intelligent woman, Mrs. Tremayne. But you’re also…let’s say, a ‘guarded’ woman. Makes me wonder what’s happened to you over these past ten years.”

  She almost leaped off the sofa. Ten years? Ten years? What could he mean—He must know Chadwick, after all. And if he had known Chadwick ten years ago, he must know who she was. He probably also knew—

  Rising, she locked her knees and struggled to breathe. “I need to…” The words lodged beneath her breastbone. She pressed her fist against her heart. “Operative MacKenzie…”

  Her entire marriage had been a lie; how ironic that finally telling the truth would result in her complete destruction. She could feel the internal collapse, feel her will buckling along with her knees, until ten years of secrets and shame collapsed into rubble.

  “Take your time, Mrs. Tremayne. Contrary to what some would have you believe, Service policy prohibits the use of thumbscrews on widows.”

  Because he didn’t modulate the tone, it took Jocelyn a second to realize he was actually teasing her, as though he’d peeked inside her soul and discerned what would disarm her the
most effectively. Disarm, yet somehow calm. Chadwick had used sarcastic humor as a weapon, but never tolerated laughter directed his way—never.

  But Chadwick’s image blurred, then dissipated like a will-o’-the-wisp until she could see only the commanding figure of a man with windswept hair and smoke-gray eyes…who had risen from the chair. Whose hand was stretched out as though he were about to touch her.

  Prickles raced over Jocelyn’s skin. She might crave his touch with a force more powerful than the longings for Parham, her long-lost family home, but she had long ago given up girlish dreams.

  In a flurry of motion she sidestepped around him, practically babbling in her haste. “I have something for you, something B-Benny dropped in my shopping bag the other day. I didn’t discover it until yesterday morning. I was going for a ride in the country and—Never mind. I should have told you before, but I—but I—”

  His hand dropped back to his side. “It’s all right, Mrs. Tremayne. Go ahead, finish it. You’ll feel better for it, I promise.” The kindness in his voice made her eyes sting.

  “I doubt it,” she whispered.

  It was done. Whatever happened to her no longer mattered. Exposure, shame, condemnation—prison. Nothing mattered but that she had finally gathered the strength to do the right thing, for someone other than herself. No longer could she control her quaking limbs. Fumbling, she opened the doors to the sheet-music cabinet, tugged out the bottom drawer, her fingers scooping up the watch box. Her steps leaden, she walked back across the room to Operative MacKenzie and thrust out her hand.

  “Here. This is what I found.” She thrust the object into his hands. “Inside the box there is a ten-dollar bill wrapped around a coin. The bill is obviously counterfeit. I don’t know about the coin.”

  As she talked, he opened the box, removed the bill and coin. “I gave him this case,” Micah said. “He was to hide inside it the evidence he promised to bring me. Something, or someone, made him bolt into Clocks & Watches. Mrs. Tremayne, you’re not going to swoon at my feet, are you?”

  “Of course not!” She hoped.

  “Hmm.” His gaze shifted to the gold coin, and the ten-dollar bill, and Jocelyn watched, fascinated, while he examined them with narrowed eyes and deft fingers. “Excellent workmanship, but someone mishandled the printing on this bill, which indicates an entire set was likely bungled. Coin’s probably bogus, as well…but this just might be the break we’ve been looking for.” Excitement sparked in the words.

  Jocelyn sank back down onto the sofa and allowed herself a single shuddering breath.

  Operative MacKenzie’s head lifted. “You all right?” She nodded but didn’t trust herself to speak yet; his gaze turned speculative. “In my business, I’ve learned how to distinguish a counterfeit bill from the real one. I’ve also learned the same about people. Sometimes it’s more difficult to discern the counterfeit from the genuine, particularly when you think you know someone. Or, in your case, when you think you knew someone.”

  Dumbfounded, Jocelyn lifted her hand to her throat, her eyes burning as she searched Operative MacKenzie’s face. “Earlier…you said ‘ten years.’ We’ve met before, haven’t we?” she asked hoarsely. “Before Clocks & Watches?”

  “Yes. We have.” He hesitated, clasped his hands behind his back and contemplated the floor for a tension-spiked second. “It was at a wedding. Yours, to Chadwick Bingham. You were leaning against a marble column, and you’d removed your shoes because they were pinching your toes.”

  “You’re that young man? You said Chadwick told you the freckles gave my face character. No wonder I—” Roaring filled her ears, and a vortex sucked her inside its black maw. “Chadwick never said that. My freckles embarrassed him. And I…I wished—”

  “Gently, there.”

  A hard arm wrapped around her shoulder, startling her so badly she jerked. “Whoa. Relax, Mrs. Tremayne. Let’s lean you over a bit, hmm? I’m holding you up so you don’t topple onto the carpet. As soon as I can, I’ll fetch Katya. All right?”

  The words washed over her, lapping at the fringes of the whirling vortex. His warmth and his strength surrounded her. If only she could trust him, if only she could lean against him, draw from his strength, savor the feel of his protective embrace. Soak up his kindness.

  Kindness, she had learned through painful experience, usually covered a shark-infested sea, boiling with ugly motives.

  She would never trust a man again.

  Chapter Four

  Micah struggled to remember that he was a federal operative, that the woman he held was not the blushing bride he’d met one evening a decade earlier, but a witness who—strictly speaking—was also a receiver of stolen goods.

  He stroked his hand up and down her arm, spoke softly, as though he were gentling one of his brother’s high-strung mares. Propriety be hanged—she felt like a bundle of sticks, brittle enough that the slightest pressure would snap her.

  And her eyes, Lord. As Micah gazed into them, he felt as though he’d come face-to-face with himself. There were secrets in her eyes. Secrets, and pain.

  As a man, Micah might yearn for the opportunity to help assuage the pain.

  As a U.S. Secret Service agent, he was bound to investigate the secrets, particularly those associated with the Bingham family.

  For the moment, however, the widow Tremayne was a terrified woman, one who needed a gentle hand and a reason to trust the man who had terrified her.

  In the end, Micah took her for a ride in his rental buggy. Katya, who communicated through the use of a lined tablet and pencil she kept in her pocket, refused to accompany them, despite Mrs. Tremayne’s and Micah’s invitation. After eyeing her mistress, she wrote for a moment, then handed the paper to Micah.

  She has fear, all day. Needs help. You are good man. A servant like me. I clean house, you help lady.

  The maid’s extrapolation of Secret Service to Secret “Servant” touched him; he wished her mistress shared Katya’s wordless trust and was surprised by Mrs. Tremayne’s docility, though he doubted it would last. For a few blocks they drove in silence. But the late-afternoon sun was warm, the sound of the steady clip-clop of hooves soothing, and eventually Mrs. Tremayne relaxed enough to shift in the seat, and glance up into his face.

  “Katya is very perceptive, for all her youth. I’m surprised she refused to accompany us, but she’s obviously taken a shine to you. Even if you were taking me to the police station to be arrested, Katya would tell me not to worry.”

  “I’m not taking you to the police station. I have no intention of placing you under arrest. The motive behind this outing is to banish your worries, which I’m sure you know achieve nothing but wrinkles and gray hair. A fate worse than death for a lady, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Unless the lady has a head full of garish hair.” At last she smiled, the rueful sweetness of it arrowing straight to Micah’s gut. “But thank you all the same. I’m much better.”

  “God gave you a beautiful head of hair, Mrs. Tremayne. Why not celebrate it?”

  He might have struck a match to tinder. Temper burned in her eyes and the words she spoke next were hurled like fire-tipped darts. “Operative MacKenzie, we may or may not have to endure each other’s company in the future. If we do, please know that the next time you feel compelled to utter any divine reference, however oblique, I will leave the room. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Perfectly. Since we’re traveling in a buggy along a fairly crowded street, however, I’ll be especially careful how I phrase my remarks.”

  Well, he’d known the docility would not last, but he hadn’t anticipated such a violent reaction. Micah wondered who had poisoned her mind, not only about her hair color, but about God. On the heels of that question, it occurred to him that her comments might be a clever ploy, designed either to draw attention to herself or to deflect probing questions about why she had abdicated her status as a member of the Bingham family.

  If she’d been a different sort of woman, the w
atch with its vital evidence might still be hidden in her music chest.

  A stray breeze carried to his nostrils the faint whiff of the gardenia scent that permeated her house. It was a poignant, powerful scent and threatened to turn his professional objectivity to sawdust. Micah’s hands tightened on the reins. “I do have a secondary motive for this drive. If you don’t mind, I’d like to stop by and talk to Mr. Hepplewhite a moment. See if perhaps Benny Foggarty returned.”

  “Certainly.” She drew her jacket tighter, but at least her response was civil. “I’d enjoy seeing Mr. Hepplewhite again myself, if only to have him vouch for my character.”

  Micah prayed the old watchmaker would do precisely that, since his own view of Jocelyn Tremayne Bingham was regrettably distorted at the moment. For the next few blocks he stared between the horse’s ears, excoriating himself. The Secret Service had spent years tracking the most vicious network of counterfeiters in the agency’s brief history.

  Operative Micah MacKenzie was not sharing a buggy merely with a distraught, vulnerable woman. He was sharing a buggy with the widow of the man whose family—eight years earlier—had arranged for the murders of three people, one of them Micah’s father.

  Micah glanced sideways at her profile. Sunbeams streamed sideways into the buggy, turning her freckles a rich copper color. It was difficult to nurture suspicions about a woman whose face was covered with copper freckles.

  When they reached Broad Street, throngs of pedestrians, buggies and bicycles choked the roadway as well as the sidewalks.

  “Strange,” Mrs. Tremayne commented in a warmer tone. “I’ve never seen such a crowd on a Wednesday afternoon.”